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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Christian Pedagogy 

OR, 

THE INSTRUCTION AND MORAL 
TRAINING OF YOUTH 



BY 
REV. P. A. HALPIN 

PROFESSOR OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY, ST. ANGELA'S COLLEGE, 
NEW ROCHELLE, N. Y. 



JOSEPH F. WAGNER 
1909 






i^ifjil (Bbatat 

REMIGIUS LAFORT, S. T L. 

Censor Librorum 

3mprtmatur 

+JOHN M. FARLEY, D. D. 

Archbishop of New York 



New York, July 23, 1909 



©CI.A251589 



Copyright, 1909 by Joseph F. Wagner, N«w Yorl* 



CONTENTS 

PART I. CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Pedagogy 1 

II. The Scientific Value of Pedagogy 7 

III. Christian Pedagogy 13 

IV. Practical Work of Christian Pedagogy .... 20 
V. The Subject of Pedagogy: Youth 24 

VI. Home Education 30 

VII. The School <• . 36 

VIII. The Human Soul , . . .41 

IX. The Human Body 46 

X. The Senses 51 

XI. The Brain and the Imagination 56 

XII. The Brain and the Imagination (Continued) ... 61 

XIII. The Mental Operations 66 

XIV. The Will 71 

XV. The Memory 76 

XVI. Truth . 81 

XVII. Obedience 86 

XVIII. Honor .91 

XIX. Self Respect 96 

XX. Law 101 

XXI. Reward and Punishment 106 

XXII. Manners Ill 

XXIII. Conceit .116 

XXIV. Respect for Others 121 

XXV. Degeneracy — Heredity 125 

iii 



iv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVI. Taste 129 

XXVII. Country 133 

XXVIII. Religious Influence 137 



PART II. CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY APPLIED 

I. The Matter of Education 141 

II. The Children . 145 

III. Method 149 

IV. Personalities and Conditions ', 153 
V. Temperament 158 

VI. Memorizing 163 

VII. Dangers 168 

VIII. Qualifications of Instructors ...... 173 

IX. Justice 177 

X. Cooperation 181 

XI. Success .186 

XII. Preparation for Religious Instruction .... 190 

XIII. Bible History 194 

XIV. Catechism 198 

XV. Liturgy 202 

XVI. Church History 207 

XVII. Public Prayer and Congregational Singing . . . 212 

XVIII. Attention 217 

XIX. The Perfect Teacher 221 

XX. The Perfect School 226 



INTRODUCTION 

' I ''HE only excuse for a book of this kind is, that it may be a 
help toward keeping to the fore the old-time saving prin- 
ciples of all education and toward strengthening the legitimate 
protest against all dangerous encroachment, a protest that should 
grow louder and more general in these days, when enlightened de- 
fenders of these principles are not as numerous nor as well-equipped 
as they should be in this fight which is so furiously raging around 
the foundations of civilization. 

It may seem exaggeration to identify pedagogy with the security 
of the home and the State. But what the mind is imbued with, 
sooner or later is translated into action. As a man's mind thinks so 
does his hand act. Everything that has transpired in all past ages, 
everything, no matter what its nature, is traceable to some thought 
that dominated the individual, or the republic, or the empire. In 
fact, without such a thought there would have been no history, and 
lethargy and monotony would have characterized all human ac- 
tivity in all the years since the beginning of the race. 

It is a dangerous thing for man, collectively or individually, to 
consider views, opinions, maxims — call them what we will — as of 
no importance in the shaping of a destiny, whether it be that of a 
prince or a peasant, a hireling or a master, a pupil or a teacher. To 
the teacher belongs the task of sowing the first seeds of thought. 
We are not forgetting the home as a factor in the process. The 
following pages more than once emphasize the high place the 
family rightfully possesses in the upbringing of the child. The 
training imparted by parents is completed by the pedagogue. 



vi INTRODUCTION 

It might be supposed that because the family contributes, or may 
contribute, so much to the moral fashioning of the child the teacher, 
instructor or professor, should be allowed to settle down to his 
work untrammelled by any obligation to guard the mind committed 
to him against the principles which made up in so large a way the 
intellectual glory of the nineteenth century and still continue for 
so many to be the hall-mark of mental supremacy. It is precisely 
against this that educators are aroused, and it is precisely because of 
this that there is such an insistent clamor that the old landmarks 
should be set up again where they have fallen, and brushed clear 
of the dust which has not only concealed them, but has also be- 
fogged the vision of so many men good at heart, but too short- 
sighted to see that innovation is not always the path of true culture. 
The family is safe in this generation or in that, but what about the 
home when it is made up of the men and women whose education 
inculcates views which antagonize all the wholesome truths which 
made the man a man indeed, the woman a heroine and their chil- 
dren agents in the light and fragrance of memories their ancestry 
bequeathed. 

There is an ever-abiding temptation by which many are misled — 
it lies in the thought that nowhere are things as bad as they are 
painted, that preachers overstate that there is no danger whatever 
that the world would be much happier if all this agitation ceased, 
and that it is a pity that bishops and priests do not look with com- 
placent eye upon the stream of passing events and imitate the bland 
imperturbability of those whose road of life is beyond the pale 
of the Catholic Church. This statement has been made and made 
frequently. That it does not speak very favorably for the fervency 
of faith of those who make it goes without saying. It certainly does 
not betray any intellectual brilliancy. Every clause in the utterance 



INTRODUCTION vii 

is baseless. Things are so bad that they can not be painted ! The 
danger to the future of all which life is worth living for, is so great 
that hope for the days to come loses now and then its buoyancy. 
It is not true that our bishops and priests are the only ones who 
raise a cry of alarm. In all denominations there is a feeling of 
anxiety and unrest, and from all sources, from statesmen and busi- 
ness men as well as churchmen, there come admonitions and fore- 
bodings which argue that there is something very rotten in peda- 
gogy as here and there and in many places it is administered to-day. 
Not very long ago there was an appalling disclosure made in one 
of the magazines of the metropolis. In the Cosmopolitan of May, 
1909, there appeared an article, entitled "Blasting at the Rock of 
Ages," by Harold Bolce. The editor's note at the head of the 
paper is emphatic. It will repay quotation : "This is the first of a 
series of three articles by Mr. Bolce who has now completed a study 
of American colleges extending over two years. What Mr. Bolce 
sets down here is of the most astounding character. Out of the 
curricula of American colleges a dynamic movement is upheaving 
ancient foundations and promising a way for revolutionary thought 
and life. Those who are not in close touch with the great colleges 
of the country will be astonished to learn the creeds being fostered 
by the faculties of our great universities. In hundreds of class- 
rooms it is being taught daily that the decalogue is no more sacred 
than a syllabus ; that the home as an institution is doomed ; that 
there are no absolute evils ; that immorality is simply an act in con- 
travention of society's accepted standards . . . ; that the change 
from one religion to another is like getting a new hat; that moral 
precepts are passing shibboleths ; that conceptions of right and 
wrong are as unstable as styles of dress ; that wide stairways are 
open between social levels, but that to the climber children are 



viii INTRODUCTION 

incumbrances, that the sole effect of prolificness is to fill tiny graves ; 
and that there can be, and are, holier alliances without the marriage 
bond than within it. It is time that the public realized 

what is being taught to the youth of this country. The social 
question of to-day/ said Disraeli, 'is only a zephyr which rustles the 
leaves, but will soon become a hurricane/ " 

The warning of the editor's note is nothing but the statement of 
the existing condition of things ! Nobody will deny its gravity. In 
the face of it there is only one course open, and that the orthodox 
one which is disclosed in the principle, rather, fact — that no educa- 
tion can be anything but a menace to home and country which is 
divorced from religious training. A very simple phase, but its 
truth is as evident as it is summary. 

The chapters contained within these covers defend and state and 
restate this maxim. In the following pages there is nothing origi- 
nal, or, if there be any originality, it is in the absence of everything 
that is new. Perhaps this is greater praise than it seems. It is not 
so easy always to withstand the onward rush which is plunging so 
wildly in the direction of novelty. Epithets not in the least flat- 
tering may be hurled at one, but the satisfaction which comes from 
doing the right as one sees it and as so many generations of men 
have seen it, brings compensation sufficient. He who lifts the 
danger signal when danger threatens and helps to prevent colli- 
sion and wreck is certainly doing no ignoble work. 

A variety of subjects has been presented in this volume. They 
were each and all considered to be correlated with the momentous 
theme of education. They are treated with no great depth. It is 
intended to give of each subject as clear a notion as possible, and 
the difficulties they offer to the teacher are pointed out and the 
dangers of misconception and how they may be distorted by false 



INTRODUCTION ix 

principles of morality are invariably signalized. It is chiefly in 
connection with Catechetics that they are investigated. Repetition 
is not always avoidable nor is always repellant. Here it simply 
gives more resonance as well as clearness to the note which had to 
be struck. 

Catechetics always was a science. It proceeds from well-known 
principles to conclusions which are irrefutable. Not only is 
Catechetics a scientific pursuit, but it is the foundation of all 
genuine pedagogy. Whatever may be the other objects of mental 
investigation, Catechetics must never be dissociated from education. 
It will be simple with beginners and will grow with the minds of the 
learners. Only questions and answers indelibly memorized in the 
lower forms, it will take on ampler proportions as the scholars ad- 
vance. The Catechism of perseverance is only a fuller presenta- 
tion of the smaller, the smallest text-book. Its crowning statue is 
reached in apologetics: a science which is gradually assuming its 
rightful place in the curricula of Catholic colleges. It is to be 
deplored that while Catechetics in its earliest shape is largely made 
up of question and answer, the same minute method even when in 
the higher classes it is explained as apologetics is not adhered to. 
The mere lecture may educate, but only to a degree, and, when the 
indolence of youth is considered, the degree is measurably limited. 
There exists for every branch of study no method more truly peda- 
gogical than the method wherewith, by question and answer, the 
teacher probes the knowledge and industry of his pupil. This 
method ensures accuracy, and without accuracy there is no learning, 
no education worthy of the name. 

The large field opened to the student in apologetics makes it a 
subject as interesting as it is instructive. It molds and applies 
everything that he holds treasured up in the storehouse of his 



x INTRODUCTION 

mind. In it his logic and metaphysics assume a meaning which 
makes evident how incomplete all culture is without the old-time 
pursuit of mental philosophy in its correlated branches of ontology, 
cosmology, psychology, natural theology and ethics. What manner 
of mental science is imparted outside of the institutions which do 
not adhere to the common-sense system originated by a pagan, and 
strengthened and purified by the gigantic efforts of Catholic scholars 
since the first ages of the Church ! 

It is slowly but surely being found that scholasticism is the re- 
pository of the only saving principles in scientific knowledge, 
whether speculative or practical. That these maxims are not uni- 
versally adopted is because they are not known. There has been a 
ban placed upon the system since time immemorial. It has been con- 
sidered medieval in the most objectionable sense of the term. No 
study worthy of the name, no real study which puts forward any 
claim to being solidly learned, can afford to ignore it. For centuries 
it held sway and inspired some of the finest outpourings of meta- 
physics and theology. It has never been out of date or merited 
scientific repudiation. This is not said so much to bepraise the old 
schoolmen or the new, but the relegation of the wonderful produc- 
tions of still more wonderful minds, while it can not adorn a tale, 
still points to a fact, which recurs so frequently in the history of 
education. True scientific research takes a longer time to confer its 
benefits on mankind than the vagaries of sciolism or superficiality 
take to become the cherished possession of the masses. Once false 
principles or theories grasp the popular mind they take years and 
years to loosen their clutch, no matter how victoriously they may 
have been antagonized in the circles of the learned. 

Early in the fifties there were spread broadcast views on matters 
essential. They were hailed by the half-educated and the un- 



INTRODUCTION xi 

educated with the loudest acclamations. Not only were they hailed, 
but they were kneaded into the very tissue of men's brains. These 
systems are discredited now, but have the people flung them out of 
their thoughts? No! They are as deeply embedded to-day as they 
were ever. This is lamentable, and the more lamentable that it is 
not only false and pernicious learning which is being administered, 
but dangerous standards are being uplifted on which is emblazoned 
everything that makes for revolution and anarchy in every depart- 
ment of intelligence. 

Imperfect scholarship and too hasty generalizations are eagerly 
accepted by the multitude, and they become formulas which regulate 
the parent as well as the child in the selection of schools and 
teachers. Novelty in instruction and laxness in discipline are the 
two magnets which draw to-day. Catchwords or phrases are the 
order of the time, and the scheme of most advertising. Anything 
that is antagonistic of the old order becomes an attraction. 

Let a professor of Chicago University declare that "there can 
be, and are, holier alliances without the marriage bond than within 
it"; let a professor of Syracuse University state that "it is unscien- 
tific and absurd to imagine that God ever turned stone-mason and 
chiseled commandments on a rock; or one of Columbia University 
say that "it is not right to set up a technical legal relationship 
as morally superior to the spontaneous preference of a 
man and a woman" ; or a Yale professor affirm that ethical notions 
are "mere figments of speculation and unrealities that ought to be 
discarded altogether," and immediately the report goes abroad that 
these colleges or universities are the only places in which learning 
survives, and that they should be made the Meccas of all the 
young who are thirsting for the undefiled springs of truth. 

It is hardly worth while growing indignant at such a state of 



xii INTRODUCTION 

affairs. That such is the state of affairs is beyond doubt. When 
one reflects on the use such principles may be put to in practice by 
the growing generations, one shudders at what must be the condi- 
tion of many lives, and one is afraid to look ahead at the frightful 
possibilities of future years. 

Verily after such learning the deluge. 

There is one consoling thought — the old, old thought that God is 
in His heaven and with His Church. It seems an anti-climax to 
add that within the covers of the smallest Catechism there are the 
germs of recuperation and, if necessary, of regeneration. There are 
four points in the little book and they are the foundation of all 
gracious living, and they become the uplifters of the individual, of 
the home, of the nation. It is against these four points that 
directly, or indirectly, all anti-Christians warfare is waged. Those 
truths are a divine Creator, a divine Redeemer, a divine Church 
and a divine Destiny. 

The existence of God as man's creator is a fact of which 
scarcely any notice is taken. Natural theology as a science is brushed 
out of the way like a cobweb. Into what a chaos the whole moral 
world is thus thrown is patent to every one. 

How magnificently the great Creator is held up for the worship 
of His creatures in the initial lines of the Catechism, strikes some 
minds by the marvellous and emphatic statement which our paro- 
chial and Sunday school children learn as soon as they are able to 
lisp, strikes some minds who meet it for the first time with the 
vividness of a distinct revelation. Our boys and girls have the 
primal fact so impressed on their intelligence that it takes more 
than any ordinary assault of the powers of darkness to dislodge it 
from their minds. It is a life-line for them through all the vicissi- 
tudes of existence, and how eagerly they grasp it when they are 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

confronted with the awful reality of death! The question and the 
answer, the first question and the first answer of their Catechism 
are biblical in their simplicity and force: "Who made the world?" 
God made the world. " 

The discipline, the intellectual discipline of negation is the only 
one administered in so many outside schools. There is no God, 
yea, and there is no world — we are phantoms all, and phantoms 
only do we pursue. The foremost of facts rejected, what is left in 
pedagogy? The same is true of the second startling reality of a 
redemption effected by a divine Redeemer and likewise of the other 
momentous truths : a divine Church and a divine Destiny. All that 
is Godlike vanishes from the minds of men, and in its place what 
.hideous fetishes are set up for worship. All this is trite, but that 
detracts nothing from the necessity of emphasizing it opportunely 
and inopportunely. "Going, therefore, teach all nations," is a man- 
date which is always in force in the Church, and the teaching that 
Christ enjoined upon His Apostles, and which is still and will 
always be obligatory upon their successors is the teaching of the 
essential doctrine contained in the pages of the Catechism. With 
his Bible and his Catechism the priest can yet go forth and conquer 
the world. This victory might be his with his Catechism only, but 
never without it. 

The world needs to be baptized in the Holy Ghost and in fire, 
for it is as true to-day as then that His fan is in His hand, and He 
will thoroughly cleanse His floor and gather His wheat into the 
barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire. How 
numberless and varied are the subjects suggested by the Catechism! 
How it flows over with inspiration and how it has lent itself in the 
past, and how at all times it will lend itself to the highest flights of 
eloquence! Of no man can it be said more aptly that he is formi- 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

dable than of him whose one book is the Catechism. It is a trumpet 
call to those who by their exalted calling are physicians of souls. 
It summons them to go out on the highways and on the byway and 
gather all into the wedding feast. 

We are priests forever and we are charged at all times as 
Timothy was charged by Paul. II Timothy, "I charge thee before 
God and Jesus Christ who shall judge the living and the dead by 
His coming and His kingdom : Preach the word, be instant in sea- 
son and out of season . . . fulfil thy ministry in doctrine, 
sound speech, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in dis- 
tresses, in stripes, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in 
the Holy Ghost, in the word of truth, in the power of God." 

It was to a Catechist that St. Paul made this stirring appeal. 
Timothy and the other disciples, as well as the Apostles, taught 
in their time nothing but Catechism. It was in the Catechism that 
the world was won over to Christ. As it was then it is to-day. In 
the Catechism is the antidote for all the venom with which the 
minds of men are being inoculated to-day. So all the principles 
of pedagogy are resumed in the one counsel — first and last and 
always be faithful to the Catechism. Volumes might be printed and 
read expounding ways and means for the training of youth and 
their mental development in all the branches of modern culture; 
systems of pedagogy may be elaborated learnedly and skilfully, 
but they will all come to naught if the underlying principles which 
it belongs to the province of Catechetics to explain are disregarded. 
God made the world, He holds it in the hollow of His hand, and 
He sustains it by His wisdom and power and indispensable con- 
currence. He is the beginner and finisher of all things, and with- 
out Him was made nothing that was made. Outside of Him is 
neither life nor light, only death and darkness. Hence, where He 



INTRODUCTION xv 

is not in all human activity there is nothing but decadence and 
decay. Without Him there is darkness in philosophy and corrup- 
tion in ethics, divorce and childlessness and cruelty and heartless- 
ness in the family, disobedience and unhappiness in the home, in the 
individual dissolution, in the State revolution and anarchy and 
greed and unjustifiable ambition. 

Christian, genuine Christian, pedagogy is aware of all this, and 
never becomes unmindful of it, and so its influence is beneficial and 
^strong throughout the whole domain of intellectual progress, and 
so it produces philosophers loving and finding truth, artists of pen 
or pencil creating beauty, the employer worthy of his wealth, the 
laborer earning his wage, the citizen upright and patriotic, and the 
migistrate as high in his integrity as his authority is exalted. 



A Handbook of Pedagogy 

Part I. Christian Pedagogy 



I. PEDAGOGY 

Pedagogy is the exploitation of the child. Its end is undoubtedly 
lofty, but whether the means employed are always justifiable is a 
question as yet under discussion, and it continues to give anxiety 
to those whose motives are unsuspected and whose solicitude for 
the child's best interests is outside of all dispute. Pedagogy, in the 
sense above attributed to it and which covers all other descriptions 
of it, has been in use, methodically or otherwise, since the advent of 
the first offspring of Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, history is com- 
pelled to put on record that Adam's success with his children was 
not ideal. One of his sons was refractory unto the very bounds of 
rebellion. It is sad to relate that the first mother gave birth to the 
first murderer. The conclusion is that at the early date spoken of, 
pedagogy, in whatever way it was applied, was, to say the least, 
consummately inadequate. We shudder at the thought that, if 
primeval heredity held sway in that inflexible manner which to so 
many seems its prerogative, there would be no family in all the gen- 
erations since without a homicide. If the law of atavism was un- 
bending, there would have been no home without a black sheep in 
the guise of a wandering and undisciplined boy. 

From the start is evinced the need of training the child, 
or what is the same thing, the need of some kind of pedagogy. The 



2 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

suggestion arises at the same time that there are leading notions 
to be kept in view without which no system of education may be 
considered complete. Right at the beginning, before things could, 
of course, be brought within the limits of rule, in the bosom 
of the original family and before outside influences were pos- 
sible, we have to deplore the fact that the child is not born 
perfect, that it has instincts for good and evil, that it is in 
its own hands for safety or destruction, that heredity is not 
infallible in its results, that it may resemble morally or may not 
resemble morally its parents, that it is a free agent, that it needs 
control and direction, that no matter how much parents may do for 
it, it may prove recalcitrant. All this is written on the surface of 
the first home — the first home be it remembered, where there was no 
ancestry to hold to account, unless we hale in for special pleading 
those remote progenitors who grinned in the branches of trees, and 
laid the foundations, among the cocoanuts, of the race which to-day 
boasts of civilization than which nothing ever was more glori- 
ous. There are not a few who contend that the strongest 
argument in favor of present theories of the descent of man is to 
be found in the fact that there are so many human beings who seem 
to exhibit a reversion to a type without intellectuality or emotion, 
to a type which had no vestige of mind, to a type which is ex- 
emplified only in foxes, jackals and monkeys as they are known 
to us to-day. A mere animal is an organized substance, purely 
material, unspiritual, endowed with senses and with instincts 
to develop the cravings of those senses and to pander exclusively to 
their gratification. If this approximates a correct definition, then 
must zoology include within its province a very large number of men 
and women who in this twentieth century force upon us so glaringly 
the characteristics which are to be found in the fauna of natural 



PEDAGOGY 3 

history only and this with a depravity as notorious as it is deplor- 
able. This is neither pessimism nor digression. It is not digression, 
for it is a sidelight on the child, and pedagogy is simply a treatise 
on child-culture. The object of any study must be examined from 
every point ©f view and any conclusion relating to child training 
reached without glancing at all its bearings, would, in proportion, 
be unreliable. The history of the child must be taken into consid- 
eration and no fact which concerns childhood must be neglected. 
Pedagogy which sets aside the family and its origin and its consti- 
tution, sets aside a factor very essential toward the settlement of 
the question at issue. This all supposes that pedagogy is a science. 
How and whether it is a science is remanded to another chapter. 
Practical pedagogy, or, what might be termed subconscious pedagogy, 
is very ancient. It dates back to the first child and to the first 
father and the first mother. It is not in the least rash to say 
that nature planted among the provisions with which she equipped 
parents tendencies decidedly pedagogical. Among the fearful re- 
sponsibilities of man are those of paternity and maternity and they 
call for some light and some strength to accomplish the task which 
they impose. So, with the first birth, pedagogy had its origin. 

Pedagogy, as we know it in its present form, is of comparatively 
recent date. Since letters began, we have had writers who, briefly 
or otherwise, specially or incidentally, have treated the theme. 
This idea is better expressed by Monroe in his text-book on the "His- 
tory of Education." He says : "Primitive society reveals education 
in its simplest form ; yet in this early stage the educational processes 
possess all the essential characteristics that it reveals in its most 
highly developed stage." He takes it for granted, however, that the 
first age of society was a barbarous one and so discredits himself 
somewhat in the eyes of those who still hold to the Biblical account 



4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

of the race. "No system of schools is to be found, no body of knowl- 
edge or subjects of study, that serve indirectly as a basis for conduct 
of life, have yet been organized. The method employed throughout 
is simple, unconscious imitation. Only in the highest stages of prim- 
itive life, where it passes from the barbarian to that stage of culture 
which we call civilization, does the method of instruction appear/' 
The life of the primitive man, in the opinion of Monroe, that is, the 
educational life of the primitive man, was determined by "Animism," 
that is, the interpretation of their environment so that exist- 
ence had for him a twofold duty, the duty of acquiring means for 
the satisfaction of the wants of the body, and the duty of placating, 
controlling or avoiding the enmity of the world of spirits, through 
forms of worship. Rightly understood, this primitive man was 
as pedagogically busy as his ultimate successor. He was actively en- 
gaged in keeping body and soul together. This is about the meaning 
of life in this century, and in a general way we might say at the very 
first that pedagogy, to be perfect, must give accurate information 
of the individual and relative values of soul and body, of the means 
of promoting the advantages of both here and hereafter. His- 
torically, pedagogy traces its origin as far back as recorded history 
goes. The history of education, if properly conceived and written, 
that is, in the hands of a consummate literary artist, could undoubt- 
edly be made a fascinating volume. That such a volume does not 
exist is probable. 

Writers have approached the theme down different avenues and 
presented the results of their labors in different forms. Some have 
thrown their ideas into the shape of a novel. Perhaps this method 
may please some, certainly it does not attract all, for a very large 
number of enlightened readers never look for philosophy or science 
or religion in the page of a romance. There is something perturbing 



PEDAGOGY 5 

in pedagogy as a subject for didactic treatment. It is a vast subject. 
It ramifies in every direction. It embraces all the centuries of hu- 
man life. It is absolutely encyclopedic. No one man could hold 
it in his grasp. The readers of these chapters will find in them only 
a few items of the great theme presented. The only raison d'etre 
of these pages, is that possibly a few orthodox considerations on 
what has grown to be a branch of all formal teaching, when pre- 
sented briefly and clearly, might contain some helpful atom of in- 
formation and in this prove not undesirable. Of the making of 
books there is no end. Whoever first dropped this remark spoke a 
formula which suits every period and uttered a phrase that is truer 
of pedagogy, as it flourishes now, than of any other science. Verily, 
of the making of books on pedagogy there is no end. Yet when there 
are such multitudinous ripples and in one direction it signifies that 
somewhere there is a strong current, the trend of which must be 
ascertained, lest it lead out to uncharted and therefore danger- 
ous seas. 

That pedagogy is attracting such marked attention is not in 
itself to be regretted. It means that the world is being awakened to 
the need of looking after the child. Perhaps in many ages there was 
this same agitation. Beyond question, at all times, there has been an 
ambition to win the child to ways of betterment, intellectual and 
spiritual. Winning the child is momentous in its significance. The 
motive of every effort on this path must be cross examined. The 
danger lies there. The child is the storm center. Men of all kinds, 
organizations of all stripes, clamor for the child. What do they 
want him for? What do the state, the church, commerce, the 
professions, the army, the navy, the school, the college, the univer- 
sity, want the child for? For it is true that all these agencies 
are trying to capture him. They all, every one of them, present their 



6 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

claim to the possession of him. One reason is professional, com- 
mercial, civic pride. Another reason is — let us call the first the mo- 
tive and this last the reason — the reason is that so much is bound up 
in the child, in the youth. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the 
world — yes, but not without the co-operation of the sleeper in the 
cradle. He is a form compacted of infinite possibilities and the actu- 
ating of every one of them depends upon the training of his youth. 
The child is the family, the child is the state, the child is the nation, 
the child is the universe, and as he is so are they. They all have 
their methods of molding him. They all have their manuals of child- 
culture. They all have their pedagogies and as their pedagogies di- 
rect the child lives and acts. So pedagogy deserves watching. 

There is a pedagogy, and better is it to go back to the woods and 
the trees than to follow its leading. There is a pedagogy which, 
because neutral, is colorless and un stimulating. There is a peda- 
gogy which takes the child and uplifts his whole nature. There is a 
pedagogy which saves and a pedagogy which ruins; which kidnaps 
and holds the child away from home for a ransom. How colossal 
the ransom! How debilitated the child returned! 



THE SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF PEDAGOGY 



II. THE SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF PEDAGOGY 

The last section, by its very nature introductory, touched in a 
general way upon pedagogics. The definition seems to cover the 
ground adequately enough. The question arises, what place, if any, 
does this latest comer hold among the sciences, or has it any scientific 
value — is it a science at all ? It had to face the opposition of a host 
of adversaries, all of whom belonged to the old school. This antag- 
onism, in the minds of many, is reason sufficient to admit it to the 
position in the world's advance it lays claim to. One of the greatest 
thinkers of two centuries ago said : "It is never wise entirely to de- 
part from tradition." When Burke affirmed that, he gave ex- 
pression to two principles, the one asserting that no matter how 
old a theory was, its antiquity was rather in its favor than against 
it, the other that the world of thought can not remain stationary, and 
so new views may, in spite of their youth, be well worth investi- 
gation. His tenet was that extremes must be avoided, for truth, 
like virtue, lies midway. An opinion must be rejected neither be- 
cause of its age nor its infancy. If wisdom is a desirable attribute of 
the age, it must dictate in all contests a spirit of conciliation. 

For a long time, the attitude against pedagogy as a science, was 
very marked and very determined. The slogan seemed to be that 
there were teachers before Froebel or Rousseau, teachers just as 
successful, perhaps more so, teachers as zealous, teachers who be- 
queathed to posterity men and women whom they had help lift into 
the galaxy of bright particular stars, the light and solace of their 
generation. Pedagogy was looked upon as a nouveau riche, as a 
usurper, as an upstart, which the old guard could not brook. Pos- 
sibly this attitude is maintained by very few just now. Yet, willing as 



8 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

the majority may be to admit this new claimant to a citizenship of 
toleration, the issue is not ultimately decided and no absolute ver- 
dict that it is a science has been rendered. It has been productive 
of much good, it has thrown much light on educational processes, 
it has, above all, directed intelligent inquiry to the child, it has 
created an ambition to leave no child outside of its pale and to 
employ all conceivable means toward the proper up-bringing of 
the same. This is a large gain. 

Gentlemen of an older day can not be blamed, however, for what- 
ever reluctance they manifested in accepting pedagogy on its own 
credentials. They had learned well the lesson of the past. They 
had seen claimants rise and then sink forever. Many who came to 
the fore under the shelter of some or other science they had wit- 
nessed discomfited and driven from the field for all time. They re- 
membered, to adduce one instance, that in the year 1806, the French 
Institute enumerated no less than eighty geological theories which 
were hostile to the Scriptures, not one of which theories is held to- 
day. They had become suspicious of the very name of science. 
Science, in the hands of unscrupulous adherents, took on a bold 
aspect and, swollen with ambition, pre-empted the vast area of intel- 
lectuality for itself. In fact, what is understood by the multitude as 
science ? 

When one talks of a scientist or of science, is the term used to 
signify a theologian or theology; a metaphysician or metaphysics? 
Not at all. A scientist to-day is a physicist, a chemist, a geologist, a 
biologist. Strange usurpation, this, a usurpation which explains the 
baseless assertions, the negations which are scattered up and down 
the whole extent of what is understood as scientific literature. 
There is no dogmatism so aggressive and intransigeant as 
the dogmatism of science. It is only the meeting of cer- 



THE SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF PEDAGOGY 9 

tain deliberate utterances in print that makes us willing to admit 
that views have been enunciated which, while they shock reason, are 
audacious to the very limit of insolence, ignorance and mendacity. 
All this has created a prejudice which, like all prejudice, prevents, 
in many cases, impartiality. Yet, when all is summed up, not so 
much are the adversaries to blame as is science itself. 

The conscience of science is logic, and many a time and oft has the 
still, small voice been unheeded and conclusions vaunted which had 
no warrant either in fact or inference. The foregoing has this much 
to do with pedagogy, that it may help to an explanation of a position 
which was too hastily assumed and provoked recrimination unworthy 
and unjustifiable. Theological odium has been commented on 
unsparingly and scorchingly by an odium just as virulent as itself. 
There is such a thing as odium scientificum, and such a thing as 
odium pedagogicum. All the odiums resolve themselves in that sen- 
sitiveness plus jealousy which abounds, alas, so frequently, when the 
trumpet rings out a new note, compelling cohorts to rally round the 
flags of rival systems. This procedure is not scientific, nor is it 
science. There is one attitude safe and dignified. It is the attitude 
of the open mind, the mind which is cordial to every opinion until 
it proves its unworthiness, the mind which is calm and serene and 
unafraid, the mind which knows that the truth can not but prevail, 
and so is willing to wait in the joy of the certainty that the future 
is secure. 

Pedagogy has not always been confronted with this mien. It has 
made mistakes, and grievous ones, but what will we? Is it not ever 
thus? Every step the world has made forward, its heavy foot as 
it fell has crushed out hopes, aspirations and ambitions. There 
has never come a benefit to man that has not cost the race toil, moil, 
health, wealth and even life. Everything that flourishes is rooted 



io CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

in the blood of victims. There is no other way upward and onward. 
Gamaliel, "who taught according to the law of the fathers," gave ex- 
pression to a standard of judgment which is applicable to all men, 
all combinations of men, all theories and doctrines. "Ye men of 
Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do touching these 
men. Refrain from these men and let them alone, for if this counsel 
or this work be of men, it will come to naught, but if it be of God 
you can not overthrow it." This is true of pedagogy as well as of 
everything presented for acceptance to the minds or the practises of 
man. What is true in pedagogy, or rather what is correct in every or 
any pedagogical system, must stand in spite of all opposition. Peda- 
gogy has a scientific value only in proportion to the value of the prin- 
ciples upon which it is built. It has a scientific value according to the 
validity of its scientific processes. To any one who has followed the 
meanderings and the ramifications of this pedagogy, it is patent that 
its advocates, while clamoring for the education of the child, not 
only put forward different plans, but begin their efforts animated by 
views largely at variance with each other. 

A word about science in general will elucidate matters. Aristotle 
will be believed, when he defines science as a syllogistic process com- 
pelling knowledge. It is the effect of demonstration and thus there 
will be no opposition to one who states that science is not any kind 
of knowledge, but the knowledge of things in their causes. Again 
to quote the Stagyrite: "Science is the knowledge of the causes of 
things, is the knowing what those causes are, and the certainty that 
the thing known could not have been caused in any other way." 
It follows that the fuller the knowledge of causes is, the fuller is 
one's science. In a word, nothing can be styled science unless the 
cause, its causality, its absolute and necessary connection with the 
effect be ascertained. These were the ideas of perfect knowledge 



THE SCIENTIFIC VALUE OF PEDAGOGY n 

received from the ancient philosophy and propagated in those ages 
of scholasticism so igorantly called the Dark Ages. 

Tried by this definition, how much of science is contained in 
the systematized pedagogy of ours and other times? In all scien- 
tific knowledge there must be an appeal to first principles, that is, 
principles almost generally known and certainly consciously or sub- 
consciously admitted. Pedagogy, if it demands a place among the 
sciences, must show that its treatment of its subject matter is scien- 
tific. The boy, the girl, he or she, is the subject matter. They 
can not be treated to any very large degree in a tentative manner. 
Neither in mind nor in body should they be made the object of ex- 
periment. The law of all experimenting is that it must be tried on 
a corpus vile or, is it permissible to say, upon the dog. Again, 
there are certain principles forbidding experimenting along certain 
lines. The child must, as much as possible, be studied and learned 
according to the measure of the causality which has brought it into 
being. Much room for reflection here, much to give one pause. 
Whence comes the child? To whom is the teacher responsible for 
the results of the training ? To God, to the parents, to society ? What 
are the obligations which the child will find confronting it, when the 
years of discretion are reached, on account of its origin? 

Then there are the possibilities of the child, so innumerable, not 
one of which is to be neglected. Above all, there is the eternal des- 
tiny of the boy and the girl. These are first principles, and demon- 
strable consequences follow from them. Any method which refuses 
to consider these is not thorough and therefore is not scientific. 
That there is a pedagogy which affirms and demonstrates these 
primary maxims or rather fundamental facts, there is the whole 
history of the Church to attest. It has a method of its own, 
guided by these fixed and immutable truths. How scientific this 



12 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY. 

method is throughout its whole extent is another matter. If there is 
at any time a break in the chain, then the scientific nature of the 
process is null and void. It were safer to call pedagogy an art as 
yet. It is young, and no wonder that its yearnings are not all grati- 
fied. But this much must hold. Let it be encouraged. A time will 
surely come when it will be pruned of the many excrescences which 
disfigure it now, when it will be like a tree which is planted near the 
running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season. 
By their fruits we know them and by their fruits we must judge 
them. 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY, 



III. CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



13 



Christian pedagogy is a term which explains itself, and it is 
patent to everybody that it means the upbringing of the child ac- 
cording to the principles which have been introduced into the world 
by Christianity. It is an easy matter to call everything said in rela- 
tion to it a platitude. Yet platitudes do not always mean utterances 
that have been heard for ages, and by everybody, and are under- 
stood by all. Granting, however, that they were, and were nothing 
more, it is not the characteristic of sound sense to decry them and to 
banish them from the pens and the tongues of men. If they have 
grown old in the speech of men it is because there is in them a 
truth so forceful that their application is demanded by the necessi- 
ties of every-day experience, and because it is always hazardous to 
build up any plans, whether for education or for anything else, with- 
out taking them into consideration. Thoughts which soar above 
their level will soon topple over without them. Such thoughts 
are birds with broken wings. Possibly no so-called platitudes 
have been so maligned as have the underlying principles of re- 
ligion. Yet, pardon the platitude, they are as irrepressible as they 
are commonplace. They must accompany every deliberate act, 
and the being who disregards their mandate, no matter what his 
pursuit, is a man whose conscience is laying up reproaches or re- 
morse against him. 

The sooner a budding life is imbued with these principles the 
safer will the outlook be and the larger the chance of reaching the 
haven. If they have a legitimate place in the systems by which 
some men propose to mold other men, there is no limit to their 
beneficial influence. St. Paul says (I Cor. iv), "You have ten 



i 4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers." In the 
Latin, "pedagogi" is the term which has been translated ''in- 
structors." What does he mean by ten thousand pedagogues in 
Christ in opposition to "fathers in Christ"? Are they only "so- 
called instructors" in Christ? Evidently he makes a distinction be- 
tween those pedagogues and himself. Evidently the distinction 
implies a caution of some kind or a reproach. Are they "instructors" 
only, or are they educators as well? Whatever his mind, the 
utterance is an almost photographic reproduction by anticipation 
of the conditions of pedagogy to-day. For just now there are cer- 
tainly ten thousand and more pedagogues to-day and as many 
systems. Just now there are pedagogues a-many who are only 
"instructors," and a very small proportion who are, in the strict 
meaning of the term, educators. 

The "instructor" does not exploit the whole child. The "edu- 
cator" has in his purpose the development of the child in its en- 
tirety. The pedagogy which limits its efforts to instruction only 
does not merit the name of scientific. This application belongs 
justly to the pedagogy which educates. This essential difference 
between education and instruction has been always conceded by 
men who think adequately. Instruction addresses itself mainly to 
the mind as a faculty to be trained, and, if you will, to the senses 
as organs to be drilled into an adeptness in the discharge of their 
several functions. Enlightenment only is its aim. Morality is not 
as important, in instruction, as learning and facility and mental and 
sensile lissomeness. With educators enlightenment is accompanied 
by formation of character, which is so momentous that the cautious 
pedagogue would consider the former without the latter a most 
dangerous acquisition for the child, for the family and for society. 
They go so far in this direction, that, were it ever necessary to 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



*5 



sacrifice one to the other, they would advocate unhesitatingly to 
abandon enlightenment rather than character. Given a man with 
just knowledge enough to know the natural law in its most general 
precepts and a will determined to keep them, such an one they would 
recommend rather than an individual accomplished in the highest 
mental degree — a genius if you will, but unformed to govern, direct 
and control depraved instincts or greed or lawless ambition. This 
is putting it very strong, but it is putting it most certainly ac- 
curately. All this is truism; all this is platitude; but it is all un- 
deniable and all practical. 

The pedagogical method which ignores this or denies this, is 
antagonistic to the most fundamental notions of Christianity. As 
a definition of Christian pedagogy this might be offered : Christian 
pedagogy is that method of education which in all its details keeps 
in mind those great principles and those great facts which are 
taught and maintained and sanctioned by the Church of Christ. 
It is not advanced that every system which advocates and incul- 
cates the principles of the Church is for that alone perfect. No 
prudent man would make such an assertion. But it will be granted 
that a system thus controlled is at least Christian. To be perfect it 
must have other qualifications. A system to excel must be sys- 
tematically Christianizing and systematically perfect in its enlight- 
enment or instruction. A writer has said that a perfect character 
is a perfectly fashioned will. This certainly does not fall outside of 
the truth. The will is the rudder of the individual. It is more, it is 
the hand on the rudder. It is even more, it is the wind, the steam, 
the electricity, in a word, the motor power. It must be lit up, this 
will of man. Before it, must revolve and shine the searchlight 
showing the pathless waters over which it is journeying. For if 
those waters should not be pathless, they must be charted. This 



16 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

necessity of illumination is incontrovertible. But the will needs 
to be strong to control and sway the huge bulk — as yet unweighed, 
as yet unmeasured — of the man himself. The more light the will 
possesses and the more strength it has in reserve, the more per- 
fectly fashioned the will is and the more perfect the man is. 

A man is what his will is. A strong will in the direction of good 
makes the strong good man; a will strong in the direction of evil 
makes the strong bad man, just as a feeble will in any direction 
makes the weak man, makes the nonentity. Applying these gener- 
alities to the matter at issue, it will be a simple inference to state 
that a perfect Christian pedagogy is the system which makes the 
child a perfectly educated Christian. There can exist a pedagogy 
which, while it is Christianizing, is far from developing the mind 
according to all its faculties and their capabilities and the demands 
that are made by the increasing culture of the age. 

There can exist a pedagogy which, while it makes a good Chris- 
tian, does not make a good scholar. To be plain, there are schools 
where religious training is very thorough, but intellectual cultiva- 
tion is deplorably deficient. There are such schools ; there are such 
colleges; but they are fast disappearing. These teachers can not 
be accused of desiring such a condition of things in the main, but 
can they be excused from the imputation that some of the responsi- 
bility lies at the door of a by no means blameless inactivity, which 
is due to many causes, nearly all censurable, due to discouragement 
or lack of encouragement, or an absence of initiative, or a want of 
being in touch with the age, which is at all times, in some or other 
way, but surely, progressive? It is not necessarily due to poverty. 
This at times may have had something to do with it, but to plead 
poverty is to forget the whole history of intellectual struggle which, 
in the case of so many distinguished for learning, was the struggle 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY i 7 

against the sorest kind of privations. Certainly it is not attributable 
to a low grade of intelligence, talent, ability, call it what you will. 
Such an assertion would be a manifest exposure of the grossest 
ignorance. 

The proposition of Balmez has not, as yet, been disproved. Con- 
sidering the existence of the Church for eighteen centuries, in spite 
of so many powerful adversaries, as an extraordinary thing, he 
points to another pedagogy "too little attended to and of not less 
importance when the nature of the human mind is taken into ac- 
count," which is: "The unity of the Church's doctrines, pervading 
as it does all her various instructions, and the number of great 
minds which this unity has always inclosed within her bosom." 
In his eloquent way he adduces historical proof. Summed up, it is 
his contention that the Church has in all ages possessed men illus- 
trious for science, that the history of the fathers is the history of 
the most learned men in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa. The whole 
passage is of priceless beauty and all who read can not help being 
carried away by his rapturous finale. "I see the illustrious race 
still continue through the calamities of the eighteenth century; and 
in the nineteenth I see the fresh heroes who, after having followed 
error in all directions, come to hang their trophies at the gates of 
the Catholic Church. What, then, is this prodigy ? Has a sect or a 
religion like it ever before been seen ? These men study everything, 
reply to everything, know everything; but always agreeing in unity 
of doctrine, they bend their noble and intellectual brows in respect- 
ful obedience to faith. Do we not seem to behold another planetary 
system, where globes of fire revolve in their vast orbits in immensity, 
always drawn to their center by a mysterious attraction? That 
central force which allows no aberration, takes from them nothing 
of their extent or of the grandeur of their movement; but it inun- 



18 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

dates them with light while giving to their motions a more majestic 
regularity." 

Doubtless toward the end of the twentieth century there will ap- 
pear another writer who will speak in equally inspired and moving 
terms of other sons and other daughters of the Church. Where it 
is easy to point out what may or may not be the cause of failure 
in Catholic education, it is not so easy to point to the remedy. Fail- 
ure is perhaps not the right term. It might be more accurate to 
say that it is difficult to determine wherein lies the reason why a 
fuller measure of success has not been accorded to educational in- 
stitutions of our own faith. Can it be said that poverty is the unde- 
niable source of what we may have to deplore? Not in every case. 

The dilatory march of Christian pedagogy in this country is, prob- 
ably, not seldom to be attributed as much to want of initiative, and 
to excessive hesitation about compromising with the spirit of the 
times in which we live, as to any other cause. Christian pedagogy 
has the same rights and the same obligations as any other system 
of education, be it neutral or antichristian. Rights have never yet 
been maintained without a fight. Lethargy in entering the struggle 
which must be made is almost synonymous with defeat. Allowing 
the adversary to possess weapons of a superior caliber to our own is 
a proof of unwisdom and poor generalship. Pedagogies opposed to 
ours have invaded every field of activity. It is not too late to profit 
by their example. They insist on the kindergarten, the high school, 
the college, the university, and the advanced education of women. 
It is ours to do the same. They tolerate mediocrity in no grade of 
teaching; they appeal to state and individual for support and en- 
couragement ; their Christian rivals may go and do likewise. It may 
be vain effort. First no effort is ever empty handed, it always 
achieves something. Then if for a period it is unpromising, it will 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 19 

not be for long. The reward will come when least expected, but 
come it will for all that. We speak not of the reward in eternity, 
but also of the splendid compensation in time. 



20 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



IV. PRACTICAL WORK OF CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

Rarely do we find among the accepted things of life what is not 
of some value to man. The question is always asked: What is it 
worth? What good is it? "Cui bono" is a proof that the same 
standard existed in every age of the world. The underlying idea of 
all this is not one to be repudiated. There is a shrewdness about it 
to be commended. In a way it is an application of the Scriptural 
advice to ally the prudence of the serpent with the simplicity of the 
dove. The guiding principle of all trading worthy the name was 
implied in the question put by the Saviour: "What doth it profit 
a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" "What 
will a man give in exchange for his soul?" Men's souls have 
been bartered away, are being bartered away, and the loss thereof 
is, in so many instances, never thought of and the priceless treas- 
ure is left in bondage forever. The maxim of men which seems 
to prevail more largely than any other is that it profits to gain 
the whole world, and hence the question has been expressed in 
a somewhat changed form: What doth it profit a man to gain his 
soul if he lose the whole world? 

And what is the practical value of Christian pedagogy? It has 
a value that should give it a preference, even if all other things are 
not equal, over the pedagogy that is not Christian. It has the 
practical worth which all normal pedagogy has, plus the Christianiz- 
ing energies that it brings to bear upon the training of the child. 
Pedagogy assumes the direction of many activities. When it is 
remembered that there are very few, if any, faculties in the child 
which do not, in some way or other, become in its hands a power 
which may be misdirected along the lines of moral responsibility, it 



PRACTICAL WORK OF CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 21 

will be accorded that everything in the child may be cultivated for 
good or for evil, may be rendered Christian or not Christian. Im- 
mediately the evidence is in favor of Christian pedagogy. If one 
looks down the contents of any book on pedagogics he will perceive 
that there are numerous questions to be answered, numerous prob- 
lems presenting themselves for solution. There is an abundance of 
material. As a case in point there is the table of contents in a work 
entitled, "Lectures on Pedagogy, Theoretical and Practical," by 
Gabriel Compayre, who, while a professor in some French normal 
school, is a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He has chapters 
on education in general, physical education, intellectual education, 
the education of the senses, culture of the attention, culture of the 
memory, culture of the imagination, the faculties of reflection, judg- 
ment, abstraction, reasoning, feelings, moral education, will, liberty, 
habit, higher sentiments, esthetic and religious education. This 
sums up the theoretical part, and is certainly enough for our thesis, 
which is that Christian pedagogy is of practical worth. 

Its worth, in the order of intellectual culture, will depend on the 
value of its system and the skill and acquirements of its advocates, 
its professors. In the domain of theory, of ideas, it has within it 
the wherewithal to render incalculable service. The order of theory 
is momentous in its consequences. Disastrous effects in every 
province have flown not so much from illogical sequence as from 
wrong premises. Christian pedagogy, inasmuch as it is Christian, 
is luminous beyond any other. If genuine it is not going to advance 
views hazardous in any ethical way. To revert. Examining simply 
the array of matter presented by Mons. Compayre, we are struck 
with the massive importance of it all. We understand that if the 
truth is to be had at all, it should be had regarding general educa- 
tion, religious education, will, mind and habits. To go astray rela- 



22 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

tively to these is to go very far astray in many other things vital in 
their essence. Not only is there a possibility of missing the goal 
herein, but, as is evident in the writings of a multitude of theorists, 
there have actually been wrong landmarks set up, and in many 
cases there is no question of reaching the goal, but the goal has been 
obliterated utterly. Given false notions about religion, religious 
education will be false, and the same is true of will, habit and soul. 
Hence when we investigate the worth, in a practical sense, of Chris- 
tian pedagogy we are compelled to grant that on its moral side it is 
better in its influences than any contradictory system, that for will 
training, which is the essense of all training, it is without a peer. 

This is high praises to give to Christian pedagogy, but it is 
neither exaggerated nor unmerited. It is only memorializing the 
patent and potent effects of our religion. When we are mindful of 
the saving truths taught and propagated by it, when we remember 
the efficacy of the Sacraments, when we recall all that the Church 
can do for the uplifting of the individual, and therefrom deduce all 
the blessings it has the power to confer on society at large, we are 
irresistibly led to conclude that the injection of Christianity into 
pedagogics is the introduction of a dynamic force without which 
education would be barren of results, there where results are most 
telling upon the constitution of social existence. 

It might be said, and it may be conceded, that constant attention 
to the religious element in education may easily work counter to 
intellectual development. It is claimed that solicitude for the spirit- 
ual features of education may beget a conservatism which will send 
out into the world boys and girls, young men and young women, 
unfit to cope with those who have been reared in an atmosphere of 
a higher, or, rather, a more largely cultivated mentality. This is cer- 
tainly possible. It is, however, accidental to the scheme, and it is 



PRACTICAL WORK OF CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



2 3 



hoped that in time it will yield to strong and constant pressure as, in 
other lands and here and there in our own country, it has yielded. 
The spirit and the caution are certainly admirable. It is in conformity 
with the view already alluded to. It comes from a fear "to be the 
first by whom the new is tried." If this fear compels them to be 
"the last to lay the old aside" it is to be hoped that though the latest 
comers, they will soon forge to the front in their application of old- 
time courage to new-found obstacles. It will soon be realized that 
all they ask is a fair field and no favor. 

This is only a statement of one of the obstacles which must be met 
and overcome by Christian pedagogy. There is no doubt that this 
science has a value of a very practical nature. What is primary in all 
education it furnishes, and furnishes abundantly. All that it incul- 
cates regarding the origin and destiny of the child are in the direction 
of elevation. But it does more. It controls all the sciences by its 
dogmas and its commands, for they are the dogmas and the obliga- 
tions imposed by the Church. Its doctrine is light, plentiful to 
guide the feet of science as it journeys on its magnificent voyages 
of discoveries. It does not trammel. It says to every intellectual 
agency to go forth and conquer. It repudiates no achievement of 
science. It places at the disposal of all, who will, the whole world 
of facts. It simply holds up a finger of warning. It says, in 
charity for the gropings of human limitations, to keep the eye up- 
lifted and fixed upon the tenets of religion. It illumines all the 
sciences — all logic, all psychology, all ethics, by the flashing lights 
radiating from landmarks outside of which there is danger. What 
more can be said in its favor as a branch of learning than that it is 
so practical that it is helpful in every way. It is useful always, for 
always while it cheers and stimulates it protects and saves. Its 
value is eminently practical. 



24 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



V. THE SUBJECT OF PADAGOGY — YOUTH 

What Father Faber writes in the preface to his "The Blessed 
Sacrament" may, and with greater reason, be written here. He 
says: "If any should censure me for writing another book on a 
subject on which so many have been already written, I would say 
in self-defense that I have not written with a view either of super- 
seding the works of others or of teaching anything new, but I plead 
as my excuse the words of St. Austin, 'de Trinitate, i. 3': 'Utile est 
plures a pluribus fieri libros, diverso stylo, non diversa fide, etiam de 
quaestionibus iisdem, ut ad plurimos res ipsa perveniat, ad alios sic, 
ad alios autem sic/ It is a good thing that many make many 
books, different in style but identical in faith, yet about the same 
matter, for thus the subject is brought to the attention of a larger 
number, some treating it in one way, some in another." Let this 
express a reason, if not an excuse, for these chapters on Christian 
pedagogy. 

As was said in the beginning, pedagogy is the exploitation of the 
child or of the youth. Exploitation has one meaning only, if many 
uses and innumerable methods. Before proceeding to methods and 
uses, it will not be unprofitable to attempt a fathoming of the mean- 
ing. Derivation is always suggestive. Radically the word spells a 
filling out, a completing, a perfecting. To exploit is "to put to use," 
"to make completely available," and again "to search for or after," 
"to explore in quest of." As a noun it takes on the import of a 
deed, an act, more especially an act marked by heroism, spirit, dar- 
ing or adventure. Evolved into "exploitation" we have a term in- 
dicative of the process of bringing out into use of hitherto neglected 



THE SUBJECT OF PEDAGOGY— YOUTH 



2 5 



natural resources. Recent lexicographers affirm that, in these days, 
it means to use these resources in selfish schemes, for one's own 
advantage without regard to right or rights. Many as are the 
meanings of "exploitation," there is no doubt that it expresses 
clearly enough what is understood by pedagogy. In fact, there is 
not an acceptance of the term which can not be applied to pedagogy 
in part or entirely, and to its aims, whether in the hands of manipu- 
lators that are selfish or self-sacrificing, lofty or mean, satisfactory 
or otherwise. For every use of the word we will find theorizers and 
theories in pedagogics. Whatever can be exploited, the child is. 
The child is a mine, is a quarry, is a country, is everything and 
anything that can tempt an explorer, a discoverer, an adventurer. 

It is of this child, this youth, we are compelled to investigate the 
being, the essence and the nature. Youth is a sunny world — it brings 
with it a light and a smile. It appeals to every one of us. It looks at 
us so brightly — does youth — so clear-eyed, so unafraid. We know it 
so well. We had it, all of us, once — alas ! only once. It is because 
it comes but once, it is because we only know it came and went 
that it is so eloquent in its appeal. It is so beautifully lovable. It 
is because we all recall, we all remember it, because it has charms 
to soothe, aye! and sometimes to inspire, that we dwell lingeringly 
upon it. It is so wholesome and breezy. Yet all we know of it is 
an argument in favor of anything that enlightens, that helps it. For 
this or that reason a man may not wish it back, but at some time or 
other every man has turned yearningly toward it. For that it was 
the theater of much bitterness or the prelude to much suffering one 
may not regret its passing away, but who is there, thinking of its 
chances, its possibilities, of how different the present would be had 
the days of childhood been better lessoned, how lighter the burden, 
and how less poignant the remorse, and how higher the plane and 



2 6 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

how purer the soul, and how stronger the strength of age would 
be if, on a certain day in a year that is fled, young feet had turned 
down a different path — and it was so easy then to take that other 
road — who thinking of all this would not gladly fling the present 
to the wind to awaken a child again, even in poverty or in an age 
void of all the luxury and comforts and progress of this century — 
just to have another chance to smooth away rough-hewn ends? 
The wish is vain. Yet there is some way of atoning. There is 
always compensation. It may be found in so many manners, and 
is not difficult of attainment. Chief among them might be placed 
the exploitation of the child, an exploitation which, in addition to 
ways and means, enriches the child by one's own experience, by 
lessons learned from one's own childhood, one's own youth. "I love 
God and little children," said Richter. God loves little children and 
loves those who love them, who help them lovingly. God has 
punishment for those who hate them, above all, those who hate them 
unto the hurting them, whether the harm comes to body or to soul, 
and surely if injury is done through mind to either or to both. 

A review of the characterizing of the young necessarily deter- 
mines the field of any real or so-called science appertaining to the 
training of the child. What compels attention to this important 
theme is the utter helplessness of the child. This, in a large meas- 
ure, is a protection. It is more, it awakens sympathy and thus 
brings assistance, which is a step in advance of protection. The 
child must not only be safeguarded in its destitute condition, but 
must be assisted toward methods of self-preservation against dan- 
gers of body and mind, which perils are certain to overtake it. The 
needs of the child in the beginning are emphatically physical. Here 
the idea suggests itself that one of the first principles of all peda- 
gogics is that both on parents and teachers lie, in varying measure, 



THE SUBJECT OF PEDAGOGY— YOUTH 



27 



duties toward the physical and mental protection of the child from 
the very beginning. These duties spring from fundamental rights 
inherent in the child, and they devolve with crushing weight upon 
fathers and mothers who created for themselves such obligations, 
created them with forethought when they brought the infant into 
existence. 

While the exigency of very young childhood seems to be ex- 
clusively material, it is not altogether so. Mere infancy is but the 
beginning of all things, but this beginning is so fraught with con- 
sequences that sometimes it is possible for foundations of such a 
nature to be laid that upon them no superstructure but an unsafe 
and tottering one can in the hereafter be erected. This holds, 
whether the future be looked at from a moral or a physical point 
of view. Habits, for example, may be acquired which not even a 
whole lifetime of endeavor and battle are equal to cope with suc- 
cessfully. The physical all through man's career has much to do 
with the moral. It is beyond question that both combine with the 
making of one indivisible unit, the component factors of which 
always and inevitably react upon each other. The old formula for 
human perfection advanced by the ancients and so frequently 
quoted by all the centuries is luminous in all its bearings. "Mens 
sana in corpore sano"; a healthy body and a healthy mind are the 
requisites of proper and adequate development at all times. Ex- 
perience illuminated by this view has brought into prominence 
hygiene, with all its ramifications and adaptations, and has organ- 
ized a code of regulations which can be violated only at the expense 
of moral as well as physical soundness. Nature has given to parents 
instincts which if followed will conduce to the absolutely total wel- 
fare of the child. Science has flooded these instincts with light to 
such a degree that fidelity to their dictates has become for all 



•"^pPS* 



28 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

parents a task that is not beyond their powers, no matter what 
their condition. 

But the child grows apace, and so swiftly that almost like an 
apparition flashes upon the family the boy, the girl. The loveliness 
of both as they take on the winsomeness of budding intelligence and 
general attractiveness is almost a shock to the parents, albeit a pleas- 
ant one. It is precisely the moment when every precaution must be 
taken to achieve the initial success of providing for most perfect 
culture of this blossom into healthy and comely flowering. It is 
precisely this moment in which cautious and wise treatment is 
called for. How much watchfulness is required only the father and 
mother are aware. It is precisely the moment when they must 
come into closest co-operation if they wish to bring to maturity the 
nursling committed to their care. Now, if ever, must mutual love 
and self-sacrifice combine to prevent any evil influence from shat- 
tering the realization of their fondest hopes. 

The chief formative agency, for very providential reasons, with- 
out doubt is exercised by the home in the earlier years. Home 
education, however, as time goes by, must yield part of its sway to 
the school. Herein lie the greatest dangers. What is the school 
going to do for the youth? What kind of environment is it going 
to create — environment of teachers, environment of companions? 
Bitter and anxious moments will be passed by the parents, as they 
think of the perils to be faced. Pedagogy comes to the rescue, at 
least so it pretends. What the pretention is worth remains to be in- 
vestigated. There is no obligation more binding, just as there is 
none more difficult of fulfilment on the part of the parents, than 
the selection of the school and the teacher. Christian pedagogy, if 
true to its principles, may trace a standard of choice and in so much 
be helpful. What its affirmation on this point is there can be no 



THE SUBJECT OF PEDAGOGY— YOUTH 29 

manner of doubt. It all goes to show how momentous the position 
of the parents is at this period. 

This all helps to demonstrate how much everything relating to 
the child are elements of a problem which, at all times, faces the 
parent, the Church and the state. Of all problems youth is the 
greatest. The possibilities of youth, its possibilities in the present, 
its possibilities in the future, are innumerable and perplexing. They 
prophesy benefit or they menace disaster to family, to Church and 
to state. The whole fabric of society rests upon the child. What 
can not the child do when it advances into manhood? The history 
of all great men is the history of the child. As the child was so 
was the man. Never a truer word than that the child is the father 
of the man. Is it any wonder that the two great powers of civiliza- 
tion, the Church and the state, await with solicitous expectancy the 
development of the young? Is it any wonder that the state claims 
supervision in the matter of pedagogy? Is it a cause of surprise 
that the Church displays a deeper anxiety and fights for supremacy 
to the last ditch? Both see that everything is at stake. Yes, peda- 
gogy deserves watching — for there is a pedagogy which adds right- 
eousness to enlightened citizenship, and there is a pedagogy which 
merits the reprobation uttered by Christ (Matt, xviii, 6). It were 
better for it that a millstone should be hanged about its neck and 
that it should be drowned in the depth of the sea. 



30 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



VI. HOME EDUCATION 

Much has been written and said about home education, yet not 
all has been well written or said, nor enough. It by its very nature 
is an ever-recurring topic, and calls constantly for discussion. This 
is especially the case now when the home in so many instances is 
being assailed by enemies whose determination can not be over- 
estimated and by theories pregnant with principles destructive of 
this sublime agency for the upbringing of the child. And the pity 
of it all is that the traitor is of the household. The fortress is ab- 
solutely impregnable, if the inmates are knitted together in closest 
bonds for the maintenance of rights which are among the most 
sacred bestowed upon man by a bountiful Creator. But it is always 
thus where the providence of God is involved. The more necessary 
an institution is for the welfare of mankind the more persistently 
and effectively is it hedged round by a solicitous divinity. As far 
as man is concerned, the home is everything for him and it means 
everything for him. Nor is home a mere structure, a mere abode, 
a roof under which he is to find shelter against the elements. A 
home is more than that. If not, then it signifies just as much as 
the stall signifies to the ox or the nest for the robin. 

A home firmly cemented in all its parts is a home anywhere and 
everywhere. It is not a structure of wood or stone ; it can be either 
a palace or a hovel. It is there where father and mother and child 
are, but the father and the mother must have at least the heart of a 
mother and of a father; but better yet if both heart and mind in 
each dedicate all their energy to the safeguarding of the highest 
concerns of the child here and hereafter. The atmosphere of the 
home must be impregnated with love and devotion, else there is no 



HOME EDUCATION 31 

home, else the home instead of giving nurture and development to 
the child, but presages incalculable evil for the days to come. Un- 
fortunately, there are too many homes which are not homes, homes 
in which the child is as surely orphaned as if death had snatched 
away the parents. When, therefore, we speak of home education, 
we refer to an education which is provided by a father and a 
mother united in mutual love and directing all their activity to the 
fostering of the child and the preparing it for the paths on which it 
must travel and which are always bristling with perils of a nature 
to make parents not only solicitous, but eager to undergo any sacri- 
fice rather than send out the child into all the dreariness unequipped 
for the journey. 

The child's education, it has been more than once hinted, begins 
with its first breath, and its first breath is drawn in the arms of its I 
mother. Needless to say that the mother more than the father will 
have to draw upon all her resources in order to perform adequately 
her duty. By her patience and long suffering she is called upon 
to contribute her very large share to the comfort and happiness of 
the family circle. In the beginning she will have more intimate 
relations than the father with her child. How much she is able to 
do is beyond calculation, and also beyond all reckoning is the harm 
she can work. It was never, however, the intention of nature that 
upon the shoulders of the mother was to be laid the whole burden 
of education. The father comes in for his part, which is not to be 
minimized, and which increases as the child advances in age. 

In the previous chapter child-nature was considered, and from the 
essentials of that nature are deducible all the obligations which are 
paramount in the home. What is it in the power of home to do for 
education? The answer is, What is it not in the power of the 
home to do? The child is "wax to receive and granite to retain," 



3 2 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



It is the flexible period — the period of childhood. All inclinations, 
tastes, dislikes, loves, hatreds, prejudices, customs, habits, passions, 
are in a pliant condition and can be bent one way or the other. Suc- 
cess is obtained only at the price of eternal and unwearying watch- 
fulness. What a golden moment both for foe and friend of the 
child! What study it calls for and what skill and what tact and 
what forbearance, so that the golden moment may bear, in the 
afterdays, harvests of blessings and good deeds. It is the crisis of 
crises, and is pregnant with results that will abide, for itself and for 
others, here and hereafter, be they baneful or not. And yet how 
often the home, the nest where the child spends its first spring time, 
the home where the parents' each fond endearment tries to tempt 
their offspring to the skies, is invaded by enemies wilder than wild 
beasts, whose inhuman task seems to be to hush or to mar all the 
music of that sphere, which ought to be safe from all intrusion and 
hostility! There is the domestic foe, which is born in the very 
bosom of the family, and which, if not crushed, will assume giant 
proportions and obliterate every vestige of home. The home has 
but one end in view, and that is to shelter wife and husband who 
love each other and whose sole aim is to bring up the child or the 
children in the fear and love of God. The basis is the love of God. 
The love of God is the beginning, the middle and the end of the 
home. It is the home. As it is maintained — that love of God — so 
is the home. Without it the home is a landscape without the sun; 
and a sunless landscape means the absence not only of beautifying 
but of vivifying rays and heat. Let the sun of the love of God go 
down on the family and lo the night starless and with no forerunner 
of another dawn! Where all the conjugal virtues reign, there is 
home, with all its colossal efficiency for the unbringing of the 
child. What untold misery the dimming of these lights of home 



HOME EDUCATION 3S 

brings to mother and to father and to child no one but they them- 
selves know, but how often that is the wretchedness of the situa- 
tion is discovered in everyday experience, in the journals, in the 
police and divorce courts. How far-reaching the consequences from 
this source are, consequences involving the integrity of the indi- 
vidual, the purity of society and uprightness in the state, is be- 
yond the reach of calculation. 

The only apology to offer for this brooding over horrors is the 
frequency, the almost ubiquity of the peril. The monster stalks 
up and down the earth, like its progenitor and inspirer in the days 
of Job. There may be the yellow peril endangering the peace of 
nations, and the press peril threatening conscience and purity, there 
may be the pest and the plague peril decimating the races of men, 
but these are almost blessings compared with the home peril, com- 
pared with divorce, which destroys the family and flings out the 
helpless child to drift at the mercy of every current and to be cast 
upon any shore save that whereon light from the countenance of 
God doth shine. Yes, therein lies its greatest menace. It strikes 
at the education of the child. No education is complete without | 
home education. No training can take its place, for it is a training 
imperatively demanded by nature and ordered of God in the be- 
ginning when He made man male and female and bade them in- 
crease and multiply. There is a silent chord whenever the boy or 
the girl has not been brought up under the influence of the family. 

It is an old thesis in ethics that conjugal society was intended 
by nature, and grew out of many exigencies, not least among which 
is the claim of the child to be develoved throughout all its activity. 
The same ethics holds that, while it is supremely necessary for the 
race, it is not obligatory on any particular individual or on all of 
the race. It is a society formed by a deliberate contract, which 



34 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

claims what is essential to every other contract, and it adds the 
proviso that when once entered this state and this compact are to 
endure as long as both parties to it survive. By its very nature it 
forbids that separation which nullifies it altogether and which is 
tantamount to the declaration that the contract was not perpetual 
and indissoluble. In other words, nature proclaims with a loud, 
imperious cry that divorce is a crime, heinous, and not for one 
single second must its perpetration be tolerated. In fact, the mar- 
riage contract, from the significance of the end which God pre- 
scribed for it and nature determines and religion teaches and the 
Sacrament ratifies, is inherently possessed of two essential qualities, 
unity and indissolubility. It can exist — this partnership — only be- 
tween one man and one woman. This unity is inseparably con- 
nected with wedlock. The question of the tie being so I forged by 
nature that nature and nature's God vigorously protest against and 
reprobate the rupture thereof, is the grave and all-consuming ques- 
tion of our century. Not that there is very weighty and scientific 
discussion. Somehow or other, the heart of man is on the side of 
reason, that is, the hidden heart of man, and it may not be beyond 
the truth to say that, as only the fool says in his heart, there is no 
God, so only the corrupt, only the sentimental, only the fanatic, 
only the debauchee, says in his heart that divorce is within the claim 
of nature and nature's laws. In the savage breast there may exist 
sentiments contrary to the perpetuity of the marriage contract, but 
such sentiments are not based on enlightened reason, and are at- 
tributable to a low moral culture, but not as low as that civilization 
to which will surely descend the race which, while it fights against 
the child pre-natally, asks for a license to break at will, or for very 
trifling reasons, the union which made him and his spouse one in 
the one flesh-. Divorce must be anathematized for more than one 



HOME EDUCATION 35 

reason, it must be anathematized for the sake of the child. Not 
merely for the sake of the integrity of the parents and the welfare 
of the child, but because of the child, for the sake of society and 
of the nation. This is patent when one reflects that the child of 
to-day is the citizen of to-morrow. The child is the pivot of the 
world, and on him and for him all human activities revolve, and the 
home was made for him just as the nation was made for him. 
What, then, is home education? It is the education of love, devo- 
tion, conjugal fidelity and submission on the part of the parents. 
It is the example of the parents. As the parents are so will the 
home-training be. It may be argued that not infrequently out of 
the best of homes come the worst of children. This is not on ac- 
count but in spite of the home. The exceptions are many and piti- 
ful; but the law is inexorable — that to the home belongs the initial 
molding of the child. Nor can we state that a child ever loses en- 
tirely the efforts of home influences, no matter how prodigal-like he 
may run his career. Home is never utterly forgotten. Homing 
pigeons, no matter at what time or in what clime or in what stress 
of weather or how great the distance they may be loosed, make 
straightway for their shelter. May it not be so for the young man 
whose childhood was spent beneath the roof of a virtuous happy 
home? The storm may rage, the seas on which he voyages may be 
far from the dwelling of his childhood, and yet in some God-given 
moment he will catch a sight of it, and after one long swift flight 
may find himself in his mother's arms again. 



36 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY. 



VII. — THE SCHOOL 

When the child enters upon school life, it is launched on a sea, 
the perils of which are numerous beyond all calculation. Still it is 
a sea the journeying over which is inevitable and one that must 
be traversed under sane and skilful pilotage. When we praise 
education we are indirectly praising the schoolmaster, but, alas, 
while we point to his efforts with pride and gratitude we are often 
compelled to execrate him because of irremediable harm he, not 
seldom, is responsible for. 

Perhaps it were well to keep our encomiums until the child has 
run its career, for it is only then that we find ourselves in a position 
to know the value of the schoolmaster's work. That his vocation is 
a very high one there is no gainsaying, but that he can wield his 
influence as much for woe as for weal is equally incontrovertible. 
It is no wonder that parents find that the first, and perhaps most 
intricate problem, they have to solve with regard to their child is 
the selection of a school. It takes all the home training which the 
family can impart to stand the wear and stress of school influences. 
The standard which guides them in their choice must be high 
scholarship, high integrity and a companionship with the best 
comrades. Even with all this secured there are hidden dangers 
undreamed of, all which goes to show that the accountability which 
devolves on fathers and mothers and guardians is very heavy at all 
times and perhaps never more so than when the period arrives to 
send the child to school. 

It must be remembered that in these" chapters pedagogy means 
the development of the child physically, intellectually and morally; 
nay, more, that moral culture is preferable in itself to every other. 



THE SCHOOL 37 

In the schoolroom it is possible to dwarf all development. It 
stands to reason that the best school is that wherein physical, intel- 
lectual and moral soundness are procurable. It stands to reason 
that if the triple integrity which is so necessary to complete educa- 
tion be in any way defective, in so much does the school fall away 
from the standard. We are justified in demanding of the school- 
master a guarantee that he is able to furnish these requisites. We 
are justified in exacting that in the schoolroom nothing detri- 
mental to body and mind and soul-growth be founded. 

Pedagogy is undeserving of anything but censure if it is unable 
to secure in reason the goal of all training, and it becomes more 
than censurable if in any of its methods or principles it is destruc- 
tive of what makes for the best in individuals and nations, that is 
high scholarship and lofty character. It is impossible to exag- 
gerate what may be called the essential meaning of the school. 
Parents have every right to expect from those to whom they en- 
trust their children characteristics of mind and characteristics of 
character which will give them some assurance that they have not 
delivered their boys and their girls to some devouring Moloch 
eager for their defeat and destruction. What can be said of so 
many things can be said of learning. There is education and educa- 
tion, there are schools and schools. There are schools bad, good, 
and indifferent, and schools imperfect and more or less perfect. 
The absolutely perfect school, for obvious reasons, has never been, 
does not, nor ever will exist. A professor here and there may 
measure up to the standard, but all the professors never. 

So it is with system and methods. Sometimes a reliable method 
may be manipulated by a competent teacher, and, again, sometimes 
a teacher will capitalize with a system that many have condemned 
as not only useless but pernicious. A system may be defective, as 



38 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

is undoubtedly a system which recognizes no training in morality. 
A system may be unsafe, as it admittedly is when built up on a 
basis subversive of all morality. A system may be so exclusive as 
to be applicable only to those of supranormal ability, or so inclusive 
as to become inert and superficial. It is these possibilities which 
pedagogy must reckon with. They are contingencies which must 
always be considered, otherwise they impede or wreck. One who 
knows experimentally how hard and ungrateful a task education 
is, will always remember how at unexpected moments and in unex- 
pected ways the path was blocked, and so stubbornly, that further 
progress was not possible, nay the delay seemed interminable, and 
sometimes not only were there stoppage and delay but the em- 
ployees had to be discharged and the whole machinery of the road 
readjusted. 

No school is to be taken on faith. It must be asked to show its 
credentials, which can be nothing else but its achievements in the 
past. If it is the maker of a history of boys and girls who have 
become men and women cultured and refined and upright, then 
there is patent a foundation of trustworthiness which may allay 
some of the parental apprehension. The school is, after all, a tree 
in more than one meaning, and as the tree is known by its fruits 
so must the school be known by its results. 

Alas! upon how many schools, even in these our times, has the 
blight of the barren fig tree fallen? Not only the blight, but the 
curse. The dead tree may be cut down and cast into the fire, for 
at the worst it but cumbereth the ground. But the barren school- 
house — barren of all healthy fruit, while taking in the life-giving 
sources from the earth — arrests the progress thereof and, eliminat- 
ing all vitality, holds out to the eyes of society stunted and rotten 
fruit which must cumber the state until the grave opens, which 



THE SCHOOL 39 

must not only cumber the commonwealth, but must lie where it 
falls, a stench in the nostrils of men, an eyesore as well, and a pest- 
center whence swarm the germs of a thousand moral diseases 
each worse than the other, dealing death in countless forms through- 
out the whole social fabric. 

Have there been such schools in the past? Are there such in the 
present? We have but to look around to find how, though in life, 
we are in the midst of death. The question is unnecessary. The 
existence of these schools is as evident as the sun, and coextensive 
with all civilized portions of the globe. The more the pity ! 
School life is a crisis. The parents are conscious of it and the 
children discover it later and at times and not seldom regret the 
moments — those so pliable moments lived under its influence. 

The teacher is such a force behind the doors of the classroom. 
He can do and undo so much. He has full sway in his little 
kingdom. Unless under very favorable conditions he has but one end 
in view, his own reputation. Reputation to him means dollars and 
cents. Inspectors will inspect the surface of things only, they will 
interrogate regarding reading, writing and arithmetic in all their 
variations. The real life of the child is beyond their ken. If the 
teacher is up and proves that the scholars are up to the standard, 
the inspectors retire satisfied with themselves and with him. This 
is the sum and substance of education as it is estimated the world 
over. 

Sometimes the deficiency of the school is supplied by the home, 
before and after the sessions. But what is it where the home- 
returning is not daily, but at the month's end or the sea- 
son's end? Better drop the curtain. Pedagogy has a sublime 
mission in the school, but infidelity to that mission will work 
disaster immeasurable and the ruin, where pedagogics are imper- 



4 o CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

feet or incomplete, will mean entire wreckage — that is of mind, 
and soul, and body. 

The school life of a youth is a test of his character. He is tried 
therein constantly and in many ways. His age is a formative one. 
Senses and mind are "wax to receive and granite to retain." If 
the school is a boarding school, the influences to which he is sub- 
jected are as powerful as they are many. Pupils have returned 
home after an absence of months, and sometimes of years, and how 
keenly and anxiously they become the observed of their parents 
and their friends and associates! They have been in a mill of 
some kind, the whole world knows, and the results are being 
spelled out. Some have been made men and women of a perfect 
stature. Their manhood and their womanhood are sterling. Some 
have lost everything they had which was worth the having. They 
return to* the bosom of the family weaklings in principle and habits. 

This can happen in all institutions of learning no matter how 
well equipped, but how much more surely will it happen where, 
while character is being put to the test, there is not the refuge of 
high moral culture. What will be the results in a college char- 
tered by government, in which a testamentary proviso is admitted 
to probate, that "no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any 
sect whatever is to have any connection with the institution"? 

What is to be the destiny of a nation, of a democracy, that by an 
edict not only paralyzes, but makes impossible every attempt to 
irradiate instruction by the torch of religion? What indeed? 
St. Paul (Rom. i) sums up the consequences of changing the glory 
of the incorruptible God. History repeats itself and will repeat 
itself always. 



THE HUMAN SOUL 41 



VIII. — THE HUMAN SOUL 

The pedagogical system which excludes the Christian view of 
the human soul is incomplete, and in so much not salutary; and 
because the incompleteness involves what is paramount in the 
child, it becomes in its entirety unsafe, and so defeats its own end. 
The desire of novelty has always been a mental disease of the 
race, and has led to disorder and disorganization in the intellectual 
zone. That a thing is new is no guarantee of its truth, neither is 
it a proof of its falsity. It were a matter worth the labor to specu- 
late how far fundamental truth would be advanced to-day, if the 
efforts of men had been in the direction of conserving and strength- 
ening it rather than in the direction of substituting untried ideas 
in its place. If the intellectual struggle had been on the side of 
well proven principles, how clear the mental atmosphere would 
be to-day and how serene the heights on which inexpugnable verity 
has the right of unfurling its standards. If love of truth, in 
other words, instead of love of novelty, or the desire of being in 
the opposition, had been the motive power since the dawn of every- 
thing, how widespread, how solid, how secure would be the throne 
from which that same truth would dispense its saving influence 
to all. 

So common has the concupiscence of eye and ear and mind 
made this itching for novelty that the time has come when the 
man the most original, is the man who plants his feet stubbornly 
on the side of truths which for so many centuries satisfied so 
many minds, and now give solace to multitudes who in matters 
of general concern adhere faithfully to the doctrines of other 
and older generations. How many theories have been advanced 
regarding the soul of man! They have no standing among those 



42 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

who reason sanely and without passion or prejudice. Not one of 
those theories but uncrowns humanity. Not one of them is worthy 
of the normal aspirations of the normal man. Not one of them 
illumines or encourages or uplifts. Not one of them dignifies man. 

Whence comes the intense eagerness to strip man of what en- 
nobles him and elevates his whole nature? Whence this frenzied 
attempting to blot out the only things that make life here on earth 
worth the living? What is the race if there be no God? What is 
man if his soul is a perishable thing? What is life if there is no 
religion? It would seem, were it so there were no God, no re- 
ligion, no immortality, that he should be hailed as a benefactor 
without parallel who in some magic way were potent enough to 
hypnotize the world into the belief that they were not brain- 
figments but substantial realities. This apparent hatred of what is 
man's richest possession, this persistent determination to steal from 
him what is better than all that has been proclaimed as substitutes, 
springs from some agency inaccessible, but real, that is inspired 
with no love for man, but with a hostility determined upon the 
destruction or the squandering of what is his best inheritance. 

If the idea of God has distilled through the alembic of fancy 
and distorted logic into a concept which is neither God nor man, 
is it any wonder that the human soul has been so bespattered by 
the sprinklings from minds gyrating convulsively through intel- 
lectual spaces that we are unable to recognize it either as human 
cr spiritual? All the efforts of man's ingenuity should be in the 
direction rather of elevation than degradation. This is in nowise 
true of the treatment which the noblest part of man has received 
at the hands of soi-disant philosophers. From the beginning it 
was considered a spark divine. It is not spirit but matter, say some. 
It is an entity distinct from man's body, but still material, say 



THE HUMAN SOUL 



43 



others. It is a part of the nervous system, proclaim others again — 
a superior nervous activity of which the functions are sensibility, 
"motricity," vitality, locomotion, intelligence. The brain alone 
thinks, but the medulla oblongata feels. The soul circulates 
through man as the blood does. 

These and many other views are promulgated by the old world 
and new world propagandas, and by their theories they are dif- 
ferentiated and classified as dynamic, mechanical, geometrical and 
atomic sensists or materialists. One is tempted to ask what has the 
poor human soul done to men that they are so eager to drag it 
down from its high estate. Why are they so envenomed against 
themselves that they prefer to herd it with the beasts of the field 
rather than consort with angels? 

The soul — its nature and existence — is tossed upon an intel- 
lectual sea, hither driven and thither driven, by contending winds 
of doctrine. This is certainly to be deplored, nor is there any- 
thing more deplorable in the whole experience of the soul than 
this, that the spark be stripped of its divinity and then extin- 
guished altogether. Yes, there is one calamity more appalling for 
the human soul, the calamity which condemns it to death and 
despair eternal. If the soul is a perishable thing, then let pedagogy 
de-christianize itself and develop faculties with a temporal view 
and for temporal use only, let the mind grasp worlds of thought 
and the senses enjoy without let or hindrance every pleasure 
within ken, let the wheels of education revolve tirelessly in the 
production of weaklings and degenerates for the destruction of 
the race, then let there be two worlds only — the world of mind 
and the world of sense — and let the world of morality fall to 
pieces and leave not a wrack behind. Is this man, is this man- 
hood? Is this life? Is this living? 



44 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

There is another human soul — the soul which God made and is 
making, or rather creating, whenever a man is conceived, the soul 
which man makes so many incomprehensible attempts to unmake. 
It is the soul according to reason, according to revelation, ac- 
cording to faith — it is the soul which is a possession to be proud 
of, a soul that dignifies, ennobles, regalizes. It is the soul which 
all understand, it is not that confection of unreason which is not 
intelligible and which uncrowns and degrades and destroys now 
and always. It is the solution of all perplexing riddles — this soul. 
It has been involved in all the great cataclysms of history. It 
explains, in its marvelous liberty, the primeval prevarication, it 
makes manifest the dealings of Providence with the world, it helps 
toward the explanation of the redemption, of the Church with all 
its Sacraments and its splendid ritual. Had there been no human 
soul as the Church expounds it to all her children, there would have 
been no Eden, no Christ, no Church. 

Just as surely as God made the world and everything in it for 
His own glory, so has He created every human soul to glorify 
Him in an ever-abiding city in strains which can come only from 
lips spiritual and immortal. The youngest Sunday-school child is 
taught this sublime fact, and the truest pedagogy is the pedagogy 
which, no matter how it trains or where it leads, illuminates all 
the windings by the light which flashes from this great truth, this 
undeniable fact. Open the first page of the Catechism, and, lo! 
how it all takes possession of the faculties of man. It is the pre- 
liminary of salvation, it is the key of heaven. Learn it not, and 
God will never be known. Learn it and keep it — that is, let it seize 
upon the mind and heart — and then God will be known and pos- 
sessed for always. That first page bears repetition. 

Who made the world? Who is God? What is man? Why 



THE HUMAN SOUL 



45 



did God make you? Wihat must we do to save our souls? How 
shall we know the things we are to believe? These are sweeping 
questions, these are insistent questions. They have been asked 
since the beginning of the race, and they will be asked unto the 
end. What are the answers? 

God made the world. God is the Creator of heaven and earth. 
Man is a creature composed of body and soul and made to the 
image and likeness of God. God made men to know Him, to love 
Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him 
forever in heaven. To save our souls we must worship God by 
faith, hope and charity, that we must believe in Him, hope in 
Him and love Him with all our heart. We shall know the things 
which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which 
God speaks to us. 

These few lines teach what is essential regarding the origin, 
the mission, the destiny of the human soul. There is nothing worth 
so much to a man as is his soul. It is the spiritual substance from 
which flow to his whole being life, sense, intelligence and will. 
It is susceptible of development, of a development worthy of its 
exalted nature. It can not die. It can not be ignored. Pedagogy 
must state the problems of the soul first, their solution and its 
training must be found in all pedagogical plans. No education 
scheme is complete without this. The importance of the soul has 
held its place from the first. No theories have ever negatived 
logically what faith teaches concerning it. All that is demanded 
is that the claims of immortality be not disregarded. They are 
throned high, they must be sustained there. Other views of 
pedagogy are inadequate, and the systems which emanate thence 
can not be relied upon, and certainly merit not approval, but 
condemnation. 



46 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



IX. THE HUMAN BODY 

Systems of pedagogy are colored by the principles which they 
propound and defend, and they are no stronger nor weaker than 
the axioms upon which their superstructures are reared. If they 
are addressed to the whole individual, they put on at least one 
indispensable quality, the quality of universality. If they are con- 
cerned with this or that faculty only, they have the demerit of 
incompleteness and in so much are defective. If they exaggerate one 
point of education unduly, then, in proportion, they defeat their 
own ends and are to be blamed and rejected. This is especially 
evident when the human body is under discussion — the human 
body about which there are maxims many and divers. If properly 
co-related these conduce to proper development ; if not, their growth 
is either stunted or in some other way abnormal. 

In these chapters the view is constantly kept in mind that in educa- 
tion Christianity throws light on every ramification of pedagogy- 
it conveys direction for the upbringing of the child in all its con- 
stituent elements. It has a care for the soul and also for the body. 
Its attitude, since the very beginning, has confronted all the ages, 
and to-day as in the earliest times that attitude has not only not 
changed, but has become more determined. The Master yearned 
that little children should be suffered to come unto Him, and to 
His Church He hath bequeathed the same longing. He has made 
it mandatory. How wilful has been, and how bewildering the 
groping of the young who have not been suffered to come unto 
Him! Into how many far-off countries have they not wandered, 
and how distant from ideals have the countless children of these 
children not been banished! It is this straying which has written 
the most tristful pages of history ; which has in this twentieth century 



THE HUMAN BODY 47 

left upon our generation the legacy of irreligion and iniquity, under 
which it groans. Hence is it, why pedagogy, unto which Christianity 
has not been injected, is not only anemic, but diseased and pesti- 
ferous. 

The philosophers from Thales to Haeckel, have theorized about 
the body of man. The teaching of Christianity has been warred 
against always, and will be until the end. In fact the world is 
divided into two camps, the camps of the Church and of the 
world. By the world is meant the unadulterated outcome in thought 
of what may be termed the human spirit left to itself, which an 
eminent writer has described in words as simple as they are true. 

"It is necessary that I should ask my readers to remember what 
theology teaches them, that there is such a thing as a definite human 
spirit, the spirit of man, and of fallen man, and that it has ways 
and operations of its own which exercise a very material influence 
over the whole of our spiritual life. What is usually taught about 
it may be briefly stated as follows: There are three spirits with 
which we have to do, the divine, the diabolical, and the human. 
This last is a distinct and definite spirit of itself, and consists of 
the inclinations of our fallen nature when not allied to either of 
the other spirits. So that the mischief that it causes in the spirit* 
ual life is chiefly of a negative character. It is known by its al- 
ways gravitating, independently of any satanical impulsion, to 
peace, comfort, ease, liberty and making ample provision for the 
body." 

This is a prevalent spirit, and it is a hard spirit to defeat. It 
controls not only habits, but views, and is at the bottom, but not 
always innocently, of scientific moralizing. What are the thoughts 
uppermost in the mental activity of many of the race to-day 
regarding the body? By some it is considered as the highest 



48 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

visible expression of man. Behind it there is an energy which 
displays itself in marvelous concepts, judgments and reasonings, 
which, however, are only more refined results of corporal sensations. 

Thinking is but higher feeling — Genius, no matter what its ac- 
complishments and discoveries, is only privileged matter with a 
more perfect power of refining consciousness, personally. What 
are all these things ? Only an impulse stirring in the aggregate of 
molecules which make up the body. The man is a body only — no 
more. From head to foot and from eye to soul, there is nothing 
in him but extended cohesive, gravitating matter. Man is but a 
machine — very perfect, very wonderful, but a machine. He is, as 
is a music-box, complicated, automatic. 

This is a view upheld not by men who lived so long ago that 
their experience of the race was short and limited, but by men who 
have, in their endeavor to solve problems which puzzle them and 
annoy, not only a to-day or a yesterday to consult, but are heirs of the 
results of the conscientious thinkers of all peoples and of all climes 
and of all ages. They have placed their kind, that is their fellow- 
man, in their retorts and have drenched him with their chemicals, 
drenched him soul and body, and lo the residuum, dust and ashes. 
That is their formula. That is all that man has been, is, and will be. 
Man from dust came, and unto ashes will return. 

Scriptural this, it is true, but it was not spoken of the soul and, 
because it was not, the higher view must be taken, otherwise peda- 
agogy is unfit for the task it assumes to perform. Man is not body 
only, but soul as well. Soul and body are inseparable companions 
during this pilgrimage. The life journey ended, then the parting 
of the ways is reached. "The silver cord shall be broken and the 
golden fillet shrunk back, and the pitcher be crushed at the fountain, 
and the dust return into its earth from whence it was, and the spirit 



THE HUMAN BODY 49 

return to God who gave it" (Eel. xii). The first man came from 
the hands of God, immortal not only as to soul but also in body. 
"God created man incorruptible" (Wisd. ii). Adam's immortality 
of the body was not a consequence of his nature. It was a gratuitous 
gift of God. Adam sinned and forfeited for himself and for the 
entire human race, not only the supernatural, but the preternatural 
gifts which he enjoyed, and among his preternatural gifts was 
bodily immortality. This is Christian teaching, but it conveys 
another truth. "For I know that my redeemer liveth, and in the 
last day, I will rise out of the earth and I shall be clothed again 
with my skin and in my flesh I shall see God — whom I myself 
shall see and my eyes shall behold and not another, and this my 
hope is laid up in my bosom" (Job xix). 

In this way does faith complete the story of man's body. In its 
adherence to this doctrine and in the logical inferences therefrom 
must all physical culture and all hygiene be tested. When this 
teaching is respected there will be very little room for apprehension. 
Where it is not the underlying principle of any science which has the 
human body directly or indirectly for treatment, then the human 
body is not respected and there is no reverence for man, his origin 
is disregarded, and his destiny hangs trembling in the balance. Man's 
body and soul are intimate fellow travelers here below. The in- 
timacy is of the closest. The soul can harm the body and the 
body can betray the soul. There will come moments when the 
eternal destiny of each will depend on the surrender or the victory 
of the other. If the soul is saved then it will be well for the body 
too. How simple the Catechism statement that we must take more 
care of the soul than of the body. The body has a right to rebel 
if the soul conceives thoughts or desires which are below the 
dignity of the one and compels unworthy action from the other. 



50 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The soul is in its own privilege when it declares to the senses, 
no matter how imperiously, the law of so far and no farther. 

It may come to such a pass, such is the paramountcy of the moral 
order, that the soul will be obligated to consent to a severance of the 
tie that binds it to the body rather than comply with its imper- 
ative demands. "If thy hand or thy foot scandalize thee, 
cut it off and cast it from thee. It is better for thee to go into 
1 life maimed or lame, than having two hands or two feet to be 
cast into everlasting fire" (Matt, xviii). 

These are hard words, but they are uttered by divine wisdom 
and apply to all who minister unto the growth of the human body. 
They are words uttered before the foundations of the world and 
they abide forever. They have never been disproved. They do 
not stand in the way of wholesome bodily development. They do 
not contradict public or personal or domestic hygiene. They do 
not impede healthy exercise. They do not invade the field of whole- 
some athletics. They are not in the way of general sanitary im- 
provement. They approve of everything that helps to make life, 
physical life, a benefaction and a pleasure. They are not enemies 
of pathology, therapeutics or medicine or surgery. If followed 
the body will be a storehouse of healthful delight and a helpful 
companion to the soul. They advocate a sound body but they 
authoritatively insist on the sound mind. They are opposed to no 
advance of science, and they interfere only when science is pur- 
suing false lights, only when science becomes detrimental to its 
own highest and truest interests. They make for all that is worth 
the making for. They dignify the senses and they prepare the 
body for the ravishing consummation of the hereafter when that 
which "is sown in corruption shall rise in incorruption, is sown in 
dishonor shall rise in glory, is sown in weakness shall rise in power" 
(I Cor. xv, 42, 43). In these truths lie the dignity of man's body 
and the dignity of the pedagogues who worthily care for it. 



THE SENSES 



X. THE SENSES 



51 



The senses are the doors and the windows of the human soul. 
Through them the soul looks out on the exterior world and through 
them, also, it receives its impressions of all that makes up the 
visible universe. It is of moment that a clear view should be had, 
and of moment too, that all that enters should be questioned. The 
five senses are ever alert and inquisitive, and much need, indeed, 
is there of a supersense to stand sentinel and control every move- 
ment, every tendency, and every impulse. This is simply stating what 
has been inculcated by every moralist worthy the name, from the 
first unto the latest. It would be the duty of this supervisor to 
distinguish between the weak and the strong, between what is 
fit for the weak and fit for the strong, between the partakers of 
strong meat and the partakers of milk, because "Strong meat is 
for the perfect, for them who by custom have their senses exercised 
to the discerning of good and evil" (Heb. v, 14). By custom the 
senses may become evil or may become good. This is proved by 
experience and is emphasized by that oldest monitor of the race, 
Holy Writ. 

We are told of the eye made evil, and of the ear uncir- 
cumcised, of the taste of death, of the savor the Lord will not 
smell, of the flesh that touches any unclean thing. St. Paul tells 
us of the diversities of graces and diversities of operations, and 
how all these things are and the same spirit worketh, explaining 
everything by the unity of the members and the body and exact- 
ing from every sense a function of honor, all working for better 
gifts and in a more excellent way (I Cor. xii). In all he says there 
is suggested a higher training for the senses, a more excellent 



52 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

way. For there is an eye that sees not, and an ear that hears not, 
and a nose that smells not, and a taste that tastes not, and a touch 
that kills. Better have none of these senses than let them see, 
and hear, and smell, and touch, and taste the things they should not. 
Here Christian pedagogy has the lines of its task clearly marked 
out. 

It is a far cry from the revelers who sang: "There is no going 
back of our end for it is fast sealed and no man returneth. Come, 
therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present and 
let us speedily use the creatures as in youth, let us fill ourselves 
with costly wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the time 
pass by us, let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered, 
let no meadow escape our riot, let none of us go without his part 
in luxury" (Wisd. ii, 5-9). Yes, a far cry, indeed, it is from the 
revelry of these sensualists to the exclamation of St. Paul (I Cor. vi, 
13-20) : "Meat for the belly and the belly for the meats, but God 
shall destroy both it and them, but the body is not for fornication, 
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Know you not that 
your bodies are the members of Christ. Or know you not that 
your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, 
whom you have from God and you are not your own? For 
you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in 
your body." This is the Christian pedagogy of the senses. Its 
mission is to teach the senses that they are not to be allowed to 
work their own sweet will, that they are to be brought under sub- 
jection. This is certainly making for the creation of a sound mind 
in a sound body. This certainly is a doctrine in which one "can 
bathe and be clean and slake his drought." Any other doctrine 
is the doctrine of death. Sense-training is by all means commend- 
able. 



THE SENSES 



53 



The use of the senses and their best use is commendable, but 
only their best use. All that has been said about the human 
body is true of the senses. In fact only by regulating the senses 
do we control the body. This is an irksome teaching for an age 
in which luxury is the lap in which so many love to repose. The 
luxury of the age is appalling. The sins of to-day as the sins of 
days long ago dead, of days never illumined by the sun of justice, 
are sins of the senses. Two deities are in opposition, and both are 
longing for supremacy over the race — the God of Chastity and the 
god of lust. Money is the almighty thing it is simply because 
of the pleasures it can command. We know whither the paths 
of Christianity lead, but we know not into what abysses the in- 
dividual and the family and the nation fall when the primrose road 
of dalliance is taken. There is a cry of fear on the trembling 
lips of rulers. There is an aching apprehension in many hearts. 

Now and then some watcher on the tower awakens the stillness 
of the night with accents of warning, but there is only one panacea 
for the hordes of ills which hover around the national existence — 
the panacea of a pedagogy fed upon and stimulated by the doc- 
trines of Christ. Yes, the senses must be educated, but the training 
thereof must be within the limits of safety. Let them exult in 
their wonderful powers of achievement, but let them stop short 
of disaster and death. Teach the eye to see clearly and far, in- 
tensify by strongest lens its gift of vision, let it travel from star 
to star, from depth to depth. Widen its prospects with all the aids 
of science but let it learn that there are spots of darkness, upon 
which it is dangerous to linger. Let the ear be the receptacle of 
all the sounds that gladden and ravish, but let it deafen itself when 
notes of peril are sounded. Regale the nostrils with fragrance, 
but bid them turn away in disdain and fear when under the rose 



54 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

there hides the venomous adder. Cultivate the palate, but set 
bounds to unwise caprice and unsafe excess. Render exquisite the 
touch, attune it to finest sensations, but cry halt when the next 
enjoyment means sin and degradation. 

Through the senses, which are the portals of the soul, it is 
so easy for death and degradation to ascend. Trifle not with 
peril. Give no tongue to mistaken maxims. There are objects the 
eye must not look upon. There are tones the ear must not hearken 
to. There are perfumes which are deadly — perfumes which are 
only a mask for disease and death. There are meats which are only 
carrion. There are drinks which are poison only. There are sen- 
sations which are not life-pulses but death-throes. For these 
there is only one law. Beware! 

The activity of the senses restrained within these frontiers is 
wholesome. Yet there are so many who clamor for untrammeled 
liberty for the senses. It is not likely they are hungry, for their 
appetite is sicklied o'er with the lurid cast of lust. The history* 
of such degenerates is found in the records of hospitals, and their 
finale is the dissecting table or premature grave. But, they say — 
why can't the eye be like the sun and look upon what it pleases? 
The sun has never yet shone upon a shadow. Their argument is 
that to the pure all things are pure. To the pure, yes. But what 
mortal is pure in the sense that he enjoys absolute immunity from 
the danger which assails the soul through the senses? No one. 
Not even the purity of ignorance renders a man immune. If there 
ever was a devil that roams roaring among the senses that demon 
is the devil of lust. There is a volcano in every human breast, and 
what man has come to the closing scene with the announcement 
on his lips that the inner fires have never stirred and that his life 
has been a career as quiet as "a painted ship upon a painted ocean ?" 



THE SENSES 55 

Life is a sea, and there has been no sea without a ripple — a wavelet, 
or a storm- There have been few chaste generations, but there have 
been adulterous generations a many, looking for a sign. What 
does chastity mean — virginal or conjugal? It means castigation. 
It means mortification, restraint. It means war against the senses. 
It means purgation, elimination even in thought. It means eternal 
vigilance. The three graces of Christianity are Faith, Charity, 
Chastity. They are as delicate as they are beautiful. A thought 
can kill any one of them. A look can kill Chastity. The maid of 
honor to Chastity is Modesty. Modesty, again, means restriction. 
Modesty is the veil which Chastity wears. It conceals the individual 
from others, it hides the individual from himself. So men and 
women walk through life clothed and crowned with purity. Purity 
is a gem which the angels look upon with holy envy. They have 
never had to make the fight, those angels; the terrible, never- 
ceasing fight against the flesh. All this the pedagogy of the senses, 
as it appears to the Christian eye, all this the pedagogy of the 
senses amounts to. What unspeakable glory to contribute toward 
the formation of chaste generations of men and women. Chastity, 
in its integrity, was not known to the world at large before the 
advent of Christ. What a reformation, what an educative power 
it has! How it can make a murky world blossom like Carmel 
where the lilies blow! What self conquest it imposes! How it 
elevates and transforms the individual man and woman! How the 
family glows with its luster! How the nations would gleam with 
its brightness! It makes men and women of true manhood and 
sterling womanhood. It makes peaceful homes and glorious peoples. 
It makes heroes and heroines. It makes soldiers sleepless at their 
post and undismayed in the encounter. It spiritualizes matter 
which it ripens unto resurrection. It makes the human divine. 



^6 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XI. THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 

The tendency to blame others for one's shortcomings is as nat- 
ural as it is prevalent. That it is prevalent "goes without saying." 
That is natural which is uncontrovertibly apparent wherever 
the individuals of a species exist. In fact, its prevalence is a 
proof of its being typical. It is in the constitution, in the 
characteristics of man, to seek rather elsewhere than in one's 
self for the cause of all misdemeanor. This proclivity began 
with the first progenitors. It was well accentuated in both 
Adam and Eve. All we know about them before their fall, 
while they still resided in the paradise of pleasure, is that they 
were both in a different fashion brought into being and com- 
manded not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and 
Evil, and that the twain did eat. "And when they heard the 
voice of the Lord God walking in Paradise at the afternoon 
air" and obeyed His summons, Adam said : "The woman whom 
thou gavest me to be my companion gave me of the tree and I 
did eat." "And the Lord said to the woman: Why hast thou 
done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me and 
I did eat" (Gen. iii). There was more subtlety in Adam's 
reply than in that of Eve. Adam threw the blame not alone 
on his consort but by implication on his Maker, for the fault 
was not that of his companion only but of the companion whom 
"God" had given him. 

This tossing of the shuttle of human responsibility has be- 
come a game in which many adepts have been discovered in all 
the generations of men. The cry has been that it is not in our- 
selves but in our fellows that we have been underlings and the 
accusation has not respected even the August Majesty of God 
Himself. Presumably, by a law of hrredity, Cain after having 



THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 57 

committed the iniquity "greater than that I may deserve par- 
don," first denied and then blamed "the Lord for having had 
respect to Abel and his offerings but to Cain and his offer- 
ings he had no respect." Nay, he went further. He laid down 
a principle that each man should look out only for himself — 
"am I my brother's keeper?" Something leavened the human 
mass viciously and swiftly from the very inception of things. 
What is found in individuals is found in groups and what is 
found in a generation or in generations, is also discovered in 
centuries and in ages. It is noticeable that one age will attribute 
its defects to a "throwback" to some previous cycle, but what- 
ever is a crown and a glory it will claim not so much as an in- 
heritance, but as a creation of its own omnipotence. 

The twentieth century has not as yet reached its "teens." 
How often does it look back with gratitude or even recogni- 
tion to the nineteenth age of this modern world? Is this pride 
or vanity? Hardly pride, because it is the boast of pride that 
it never stoops to the little or the mean. Pride holds in con- 
tempt the opinions of others. Vanity, on the other hand, aims 
at attracting attention, in divers ways, to itself. It would seem, 
then, that this young age of the Christian era is aggressively vain, 
and so aggressively vain that it holds in contempt the years 
that have gone by. It is a vain, selfish period through which we 
are passing, and educators undertake a very heavy task when 
they propose to remove from mind, brain and senses the dele- 
terious consequences of these times, which in so many instances 
render youth refractory and rebellious to all authority and elders 
prone to connive and weak to resist. There is something be- 
yond doubt rotten in Denmark and the rottenness is the effect of 
example or heredity, call it what one pleases. 



5 8 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The mistake to be avoided is to think that nowhere under 
the sun is there established an agency powerful enough to com- 
pete with the problem or to go any distance toward weakening, 
if not altogether overthrowing, the Welt-Geist. This world- 
spirit, world-tendency, world-influence is not a nonentity. It 
is as real as the air we breathe. Rather it is the atmosphere in 
which the mind has its being and lives and moves. To remove 
it is not at all possible. But it may be neutralized. 

There are, most undoubtedly, re-agents somewhere. But 
where? Ah, there is just the duty of pedagogy. If pedagogy 
without Christianity can find and apply them, well and good. 
But if it can not, then let it try the reactionary influences of re- 
ligion. They have been tried and thus far these have harvested 
the largest measure of success. Negative pedagogy has been 
tried and, as with all negative things, there has been, at the 
best, only negative results. Nor should there be much of an out- 
cry if there was a result purely negative. Unfortunately the 
results have been perniciously positive. So much so, that over 
the length and breadth of this land there has been ululation, there 
has been a demand that some element be introduced into the 
systems of education which boards and principals uphold and 
municipalities support, some force to roll back the waves of 
Socialism and the irreverence which seem to be sweeping over 
the land. 

These are the thoughts which always come to the surface 
whenever one reflects on the existing condition of things and 
is irresistibly compelled to lay everything that is wrong or dis- 
turbing finally at the door of naturalism or materialism, in their 
thousand and one kinds, which form the basis of so much of 
the pedagogy of the day. These theories control much of the 



THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 



59 



political activity and much of the civic energy of the age. In 
a word, wittingly or unwittingly, they exert an influence which 
projects itself into almost every sphere of modern life. Hence 
the necessity of Christianizing so many of the actual methods. 
What becomes of the human body and of the senses and of the 
brain, in fact of all the operations of the individual, if the moral 
order is not emphasized? What moral order is there possible 
without religion, and what religion is there without God, and 
what God is the God alone to be adored, if not the God revealed 
by and in the Christ? 

Psychology and all the "ologies" have no salutary trend save 
while they are consonant with human experience and at the same 
time safeguard the old beliefs. How vain to discuss any faculty 
of man if that faculty has only a commercial value commen- 
surate with the debit and credit of this mundane sphere? What 
will sense-training compass save a deeper wallowing in the sen- 
sual sty if the senses alone are the horizon of man's hopes and 
man's ambition? No! Man, soul and body, must be steered 
in the direction pointed out by his origin and his destiny, otherwise 
all his splendid vitality is exhausted in vain. 

What was said about man's body and senses clearly holds 
when our examination goes beyond the exterior and penetrates 
the wonderful interior mechanism, of which all that the eye 
beholds in him is only a complexity of instruments. Anatomy 
in laying bare the formation, or rather the structure, of the 
brain has simply made greater the wonder why the old truth 
that a divinity hedges in everything in man has not extruded 
every other claimant anent the origin of all things. The con- 
templation of the several portions, or, if you will, organs of the 
brain, of the medulla oblongata, from which proceed, besides 



60 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

other nerves, those dominating heart and lung action; the pons 
varolii and the cerebrum or large brain, with the clearly differ- 
entiated parts which are situated at its base — the corpus striatum, 
the optic thalamus, the corpus callosum and the corpora quad- 
rigemina — the soft pulpy substance of mixed gray and white 
matter, part cells, part fibres, the contemplation of all this con- 
vinces the observer that a more cunning hand than a blind 
natural force has been at work. 

This hidden organ is the purveyor to all the senses in their busy 
activity and the instrument which helps the intelligence, or rather 
is the servant of the mind in all its delicate operations. Brain 
and senses belong to the family, if the expression may be used, of 
matter. They are of matter only, and their operations and their 
existence do not rise above their source. The function of the 
senses is to take in the outside world and transmit the impression 
thereof to the brain, whose office is to fashion images of the 
things presented. 

There is a chasm, however, between the finest achievement of 
brain and the lowest or simplest product of mind. The bridging 
over of this chasm has occupied the attention and the energy of 
the schools since earliest times. The schoolmen think they have 
discovered the secret, they think they have come upon "the magic 
transformer who is able to elevate phantasms from the category of 
matter to that of pure ideas. This faculty they call the acting in- 
tellect; a real magician which possesses the wonderful secret of 
stripping sensible species of their material conditions, of smoothing 
every roughness which prevents them from coming into contact 
with the pure understanding and transforms the gross food of the 
sensitive faculties into the purest ambrosia, fit to be served at the 
repast of spirits" (Balmez). 



THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 61 



XII. THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 

{Continued.) 

It can hardly be called into question that in these pages there 
is little, if any, need of technical definition or scientific description. 
These may be had without much labor on reference to the many 
specialist books which are so constantly appearing on the literary 
counter. The brain fulfils many offices, but its chiefest function 
would seem to be that of imagination, which is a perceptive and 
picture making faculty. As a soul power it receives from the sen- 
sations of the external senses the resemblances or forms of ob- 
jects. It retains these likenesses, and when the objects which 
gave rise to them are absent or passed away it is able to recall 
them without any objective assistance from outside existences. 
In man it goes a step farther and forms other images by the aid 
of those it already possesses. Even in the days of the scholastics 
this faculty was thoroughly studied and conclusions reached which 
are admitted by the scientific schools of to-day, though there is 
such a confusion of terms that any effort to clarify and distinguish 
becomes weariness and vexation of spirit. The older men, in their 
own transparent way, and in a more intelligible tongue, spoke of 
imagination and of fancy in its sensuous, in its productive and its 

esthetic relations, and gave a very satisfactory answer to the ques- 
tion: 

"Tell me where is fancy bred — 
Or in the heart or in the head?" 

And they understood as well as these youngest children of time 

that 

"The lunatic, the lover and the poet 
Are of imagination all compact." 



62 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

They insisted that it was to rank among the sensitive powers of 
man; that though animated by a spiritual soul, it was at best a 
faculty organic in its operations and was not a participant but an 
auxiliary in all intellectual activity. This was defended stoutly 
as far back as the time of Aristotle and by Aristotle himself. It 
was an organ, and therefore living matter peculiarly fashioned 
and designed for a special office. It was the last administrator to 
the intelligence and stood ready to assist in the vestibule of spiritu- 
ality. Being organic, it was found wherever sensation existed, 
and was as necessary to the animal as it was to man. 

The world has made many revolutions around the sun since 
those days, but the question arises, has their opinion or their state- 
ment been successfully controverted? It would appear not. The 
imagination is not the least among God's gifts to man. Like all 
other gifts, it can be misused by man's perversity. Lent to him as 
a blessing, it is in his power to warp it into a curse. In a measure, 
like purely material functions, it is uncontrollable, and in so far 
can be curbed by no laws. But in a very large measure it is sus- 
ceptible of direction and under the command of the will the dan- 
gers to which it subjects its possessor can be very materially les- 
sened. Man without imagination would be cut off from innumer- 
able advantages — advantages which make for his material and so- 
cial and spiritual welfare. It is a power which enables him to 
largely and vividly realize his environment, and which places him 
in very close communication with his fellows. A man without im- 
agination only half enjoys life. It would be better to say that a 
man without imagination only half understands life. 

By the man without imagination is meant the man who has 
just enough of the gift to put him in superficial contact with the 
outer universe, who has just enough of it to make him competent 



THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 63 

to transact the ordinary business of living, to eat and drink, and 
in a half way to be merry, to coin and hoard money. He is a man 
for whom poetry is simply a more labored prose, for whom music 
is only a succession of sounds, for whom a primrose is a yellow 
flower and no more, for whom the pain of his fellowman is only 
pain and not suffering and not agony, for whom life is business 
and nothing else. He is a man who cannot understand childhood 
nor youth nor the joys of either. He measures all things by 
himself. He can not enter into the feelings of others. He is 
without sympathy. He has reduced all living and all life to mathe- 
matical rules. He is a machine — an automaton only. He is not 
without vices, but his vices have no excuse, no palliative. He is 
heartless. 

It would be hard to understand the significance he attaches to 
such terms as misery, pity, consideration, charity. He never be- 
comes the victim of exaggerated or any other kind of altruism, 
Civic duties have no charm for him. His domestic relations are 
all matter-of-fact transactions. He easily degenerates into the 
heartless, systematic tyrant. He is wrapped up in the mantle of 
his own exceptional solitariness. Very little sympathy goes out to 
him while he lives and he goes to his grave unregretted and his 
memory is most decidedly not kept green. 

There have been such men. They have traveled along this pil- 
grimage of earth, and they have had eyes and ears, and verily 
they have neither seen nor have they heard. For them the world 
and everything in it, save themselves, has been a wonder and a 
sad surprise. 

The man with imagination is a character just the reverse, and 
the contrast is in proportion to the power of his picture-making 



64 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

faculty. If sometimes he has been misunderstood, he has always 
understood. 

It may be contended that the condition of the former is prefer- 
able. Let every one abound in his own opinion. 

In the matter of the imagination pedagogy has a task which 
bristles with difficulties. In its aim to develop it must assume 
also the responsibility of guiding the imagination. Experience 
guarantees that it is possible for educational training to perform 
two offices. Where there is little imagination it can add some- 
thing to that little ; where the imagination is too vigorous it can di j 
rect and curb and elevate and chasten. Many methods for com- 
passing this end have been advanced. Some of them are too ad- 
vanced, some are impotent altogether, some seem to fit the pur- 
pose for which they are intended, and all of them depend on the 
efficiency of those entrusted with their application. The imagina- 
tion can not be commanded in the same way or as immediately 
as the senses or the intelligence. Moreover, it has a way of com- 
bining and analyzing the images which are collected within it 
which may be beyond the reach of control. That it is a menace 
to peace of mind and whiteness of conscience nobody for one in- 
stant doubts. What can be done for it is to keep it aloof from 
dangerous influences. There are certain pictures which if we can 
not stop it from reproducing, we can at least prevent it from har- 
boring or caressing. 

It is as sensitive — is the imagination — as a photographic plate. 
It is as instantaneous. There are certain roads down which we 
must not allow it to journey. There is no prospect, no matter how 
drear, which it has not the skill to light up and color. There is 
no temptation to any soul-defilement which it has not the trick 
to intensify and render more hypnotic. It can throw the most 



THE BRAIN AND THE IMAGINATION 65 

bewitching mask over almost any kind of corruption. It can 
beguile old age almost as fascinatingly as it can youth. It is one 
of the most dangerous inmates of our soul's household ; but, thank 
God, we have it within the power of our will to bid it down. 
We must tame it. It is outside of all reason to feed it as the senses 
would demand or an easy nature would desire. It is midway be- 
tween the outer senses and the inmost intellect, and both can 
arouse it and lash it into a fury in comparison with which a ty- 
phoon is a calm. Therefore must the mind refuse it certain 
thoughts and the senses shut out certain objects. 

A multitude of sights and sounds and sensations should be cur- 
tained away from the imagination. Among its most formidable 
enemies as well as in the ranks of its most insinuating, aye, and in- 
spiring friends, are books and conversation. To keep it alive 
books must be read and intercourse with helpful minds enjoyed. 
Yet there are books which will feed it unto too much life and 
jeopardize its welfare. These are books against faith and against 
morality. The old law holds for this faculty as it does for every 
other. It must not be "led into temptation" and it must be "de- 
livered from evil." Nothing elevates it, nothing chastens it so 
much as the principles of religion. Nothing keeps it within bounds 
so strongly as the precepts of Christianity. The world is full of 
dangers for it. So is all the flesh of which it is a part. For the 
imagination especially the damnable maxim to be execrated is the 
maxim that to the pure all is pure. Purity is a splendid preroga- 
tive, but it does not make us immune. 



66 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XIII. THE MENTAL OPERATIONS 

There is no immunity from spiritual contagion or infection, nor 
will there ever be discovered a serum the application of which will 
act as a preventive against moral or intellectual disorder. The 
individual holds his destroying in his own keeping, and from him 
alone ultimately must come self-preservation. Being, however, 
social by his nature and born into the society of his fellows, for 
some portion of his career he is entitled to assistance. This help 
he should find in the bosom of his family, should expect from the 
hand of parents and immediate kin; but this failing he has only 
the state or the institution to appeal to. How unsolicitous govern- 
ment, municipal or otherwise, is, calls for no proof. 

In this country, where everyone is as good as another, and where 
everyone has the right to liberty and happiness, how few institu- 
tions have not been assailed by reproach and accusations so ap- 
palling and so frequently justified that every honest man trembles 
for the fate of the poor and the young and the infirm who pass 
days of agony behind walls not too deaf to hear, but alas too im- 
potent to tell of the tragedies enacted between them. It were vain 
to demand what pedagogy presides over such horrors. Yet peda- 
gogy of some kind there must be — some kind of explanation of the 
child. However, startling as the revelations have been, they may 
be paralleled by atrocities of another nature, just as calamitous in 
results. 

It is a savage act to starve the body and to mistreat it, and so 
bar the mind behind the locks and gratings of idiocy, but is it a 
much less barbarous deed to mislead the intelligence, drive it down 



THE MENTAL OPERATIONS 67 

paths of error and force it to drool out judgments that are but fal- 
lacies and ratiocinations without logic? Intellectual training is very 
deficient and very meager, if the intelligence itself is not under- 
stood, if its nature and its operations are misrepresented. If it is 
stripped of its spiritual nature what are its most consummate 
achievements but a pyrotechnic display, or its most intricate work- 
ings but traveling down blind alleys and gropings in the dark. 

Give an erroneous impression of the intellectual fabric and what 
is the use of rules and systems and method? There can be abso- 
lutely no mental cultivation worth the while if the very essence of 
all intellectuality is distorted by meaningless terms, terms contradict- 
ing all tradition and the common sense of the race. As far back as 
anything like philosophic system goes, mental operations have been 
considered as the functions of a faculty rooted in a spiritual sub- 
stance called the soul. The nature of this soul has been inferred from 
the nature of these operations. It has been perceived that they tran- 
scend in their power — these operations — all the activity of matter. 
Matter has never been known to possess in any of its agencies the 
capability with which an idea is endowed. Matter impedes matter. 
Thought is never an obstacle to thought. 

Much labor has been expended in the effort to pull down the soul 
to the level of mere material beings, but expended in vain. No 
reasoning, however subtle, has dislodged this truth from its per- 
manent and impregnable position; that intellect lives in another 
order of existence and is only allied to matter because of the won- 
derful union existing between body and soul. It has long ago been 
said, and it is still admitted, that "to be a man is not to eat, drink 
and sleep, is not to build houses and cities, to ascend in space nor 
fly over the surface of the earth behind a cloud of smoke. The 
animal does all that better than man; the bird, the smallest gnat, 



68 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

could instruct our best aeronauts and surpass our locomotives in 
swiftness." 

What is it then that makes us men and leads us to regard the 
name of animal as a reproach? Every one answers: It is reason, 
it is intellect. But is it intellect or the use that is made of it, which 
places us at an immeasurable distance from the brute? The latter 
is perfect in its kind, because it is all that it can be. It uses freely 
the faculties it has received and never buries any of its talents. If 
man neglected the sublime gift of intellect, or what is worse, if 
he abused it, he would sink beneath the animal. To be a brute with 
the power of not being so, is to be more a brute than the brute 
itself. We are men then only so far as we are guided by reason 
and make use of our intellect. Thus far the Abbe Martinet more 
than half a century ago. 

In the same vein other authors have written more than twenty 
centuries ago, and the same thought will be expressed by the lips 
and pens of men until "the last syllable of recorded time." In the 
pedagogical function, which undertakes the formation of the mind 
of the youth, this first fact must be steadily kept unobscured. It 
must take cognizance of the processes of human mentality. 

There is one soul in man and one only. There is one mind in 
man and one only. One will in man and one only. To contend for 
more is simply to break up man's conscious individuality; that is, 
man's personality. Man's will operates in two directions, in the 
direction of desire or of loathing, in the direction of hatred or love, 
in the direction of attraction or repulsion. This will has been called 
a blind faculty. It can accept or refuse only what is presented to 
it by the intelligence and it can accept only what is evidenced to 
it as good and reject only what is offered to it as not good. 

This is not theory nor conjecture, but is fact. Just as surely as 



THE MENTAL OPERATIONS 69 

there is an outside region ; that is, a region outside the mind, teem- 
ing with realities, so within each man there is an expansive ac- 
tivity alive with happenings just as stubbornly real as all other 
phenomena. Not to-day for the first time has it been said that what 
the eye does not see the heart does not hunger for. But to-day is 
repeated what has been said since the beginning, that what the 
intellect does not flash upon the will, the will has no craving for. 

The object of the will is good. There is a good which is becom- 
ing and comfortable to right reason, and a good which may give 
pleasure to an appetite, and a good useful which is conducive to 
the attaining of another good. It is the duty of the intellect to offer 
to the will a good which meets the principal longing of a being, 
or which meets a secondary longing without injury to the principal. 
It belongs to the intellect to distinguish between a true good and 
an apparent good, which apparent good may be fraught with 
unmistakable evil for the best interests of the individual. It is be- 
cause of this obligation resting on the intelligence of man that 
cultivation of the intellect is indispensable. As the mind directs, 
the will will choose generally. 

In considering this spiritual appetite of man it must always be 
remembered that while the will has the final decision it is always 
in a large measure under the influence of the light which the in- 
telligence sheds upon the objects of its choice. The food of the 
intelligence is truth — it is made to know the truth and the posses- 
sion of the truth in its chiefest inheritance. 

It would seem that pedagogy has its office clearly mapped out. 
It must prepare the mind for the reception of the truth, and it 
must nourish the mind upon truth, and upon truth only. The 
last operation of intelligence is reasoning. It begins its activity 
by impressing upon itself the mental images of the things with 



7 o CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

which it is environed. It combines those images and shapes con- 
cerning them — judgments. It compares judgments, and from this 
comparison it deduces other judgments, and in this inference is its 
ultimate performance or ratiocination. 

The mission of pedagogy is difficult, but by no means obscure. 
Teach clearness of ideas, accuracy of statement and logical com- 
parison and deduction, and the mind is in possession of a training 
which ought to lead to fortunate results. Prepared after this 
fashion the intellect, as it develops, will find itself apt to admit 
what is true and discard what is false. It has the whole world of 
history, the whole world of science, the whole world of experience 
to investigate; but the history must not be a tissue of falsehoods, 
and the science must not be guesses or fiction or distorted ; and the 
experience must, as much as possible, be kept aloof from whatever 
may darken the mind, weaken the will or degrade the senses. 



THE WILL 71 



XIV. THE WILL 

It was impossible to mention the mental operations without mak- 
ing some allusions to the will of man. There has been the same 
refusal to acknowledge the old-time view of this faculty as there 
has been to admit what seems to be the universal verdict concerning 
the soul itself. About the reasons for all human activity Aristotle 
discourses as follows : "All agents, in whatever they do, act in 
some things not of themselves, and in some other things of them- 
selves. When their performances are not of themselves they are 
influenced sometimes by chance, sometimes by necessity. Hence, 
all involuntary deeds are either chance ones or proceed from na- 
ture, or are compulsory. But the things of which men themselves 
are the cause spring from habit or from desire, which desire is 
sometimes directed by reason, sometimes not. Man's will is the 
desire for good as approved by reason, for no one is anxious for 
anything unless he esteems it as good. Desires that are unreason- 
able, desires in which reason has no share, are those that are oc- 
casioned by anger or cupidity. Thus there are seven causes for 
the doing by man of everything that is done; they are: "Chance, 
violence, instinct or nature, the semblance or reality of some good, 
anger, lust or any kind of greed" (Rhet, 1. i, c. 10). 

This assertion of the philosopher has been rejected by some, but 
it seems to accord with reason and experience. In fact, it is in the 
power of every seriously thinking man to test the value of this 
opinion, which certainly has the merit of lucidity. The system of 
psychology, as it is understood by those whose conservatism has 
made them rally under the scholastic standard, has always con- 
sidered the will as a rational appetite. That it is an appetite of 



72 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

some kind there is apparently no reason to doubt. That it is in- 
fluenced by reason would seem to be a foregone conclusion. 

Here the question arises, if it be a reasonable appetite, if it be 
a desire that will not awaken except reason presents it with acceptable 
and wholesome food, how is it that men make such a mad fight 
for things that harm, things that degrade, instead of for things 
which improve and elevate? Our answer is that the reason of the 
individual has not been sufficiently enlightened as to what is real 
and what is seeming good. Another reason is that though the 
mind may show what is good and what is bad, what is profitable 
and what is dangerous, the will is dominant, and in spite of reason 
may select what it pleases. Our greatest prerogative is freedom 
of will. It is this liberty that has been the cause of all the evil as 
well as of all the good which has visited humanity. 

The experience of every man is that no matter how illuminated 
his will may be by the light of reason or of faith, his will is the 
final arbiter, and may and can follow that light or turn his back 
upon it just as he pleases. He sees the best and goes after the 
worst, he beholds the highest and he pursues the lowest, his reason 
teaches him wisdom and he plays the fool. What is the reason he 
so often wills perversely? The reason is not that he desires harm 
for himself and for those dependent upon him — were that his wish 
he would be a degenerate of the blackest description — but his 
anger or his lust nullifies all the warning of his intelligence, and 
the present good of a baser kind distorted by the medium of his 
passions bulks so largely and splendidly before his vision that he 
rushes after the will-o'-the-wisp illusions, and so sinks instead of 
soaring. 

A preacher has said truly that a man in the culmination of a 
blinding passion, knowing that the minute his desires would be 



THE WILL 73 

gratified he would be precipitated headlong to perpetual doom, 
would not care for the consequences, but would sacrifice an eternity 
of happiness merely for the satisfaction of a sensual or other un- 
righteous moment. It has been so through all history. It has been 
so since the first prevarication — it will be so until the end. How 
clear all this is pointed out in Holy Writ ! How manifest it was to 
the mind of St. Paul ! When he spoke in his humility of his miser- 
able condition which prevented him from being "dissolved and 
being with Christ" he tells us that "lest the greatness of the revela- 
tion should lift me up, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an 
angel of Satan to buffet me," and then makes the confession that 
all men have to make : "I know that there dwelleth not in me that 
which is good. For to will is present with me; but to accomp- 
lish that which is good I find not. For the good which I will I 
do not, but the evil which I will not, that I do. I see another law 
in my members, fighting against the law of my mind and cap- 
tivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. With the 
mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" 
(Rom. vii, 18-25). 

From all this it is not to be inferred that the will is not the 
source of man's responsibility, it is not to be inferred that a fight 
is unnecessary, that a struggle is useless, that the evil can not be 
overcome. Such a view would be rank heresy. Our strength lies 
in the very freedom of the will, and because one is free he can 
conquer, he can subdue all the desires which make for iniquity. 
This very freedom of the will has made men pure and just, and 
righteous and strong, against everything which goes counter to 
the mandates of the Lord. He has made a compact with tempta- 
tion and no one will be tried beyond his strength. The same great 
Apostle, the same who passed through the river of the fire of all 



74 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

tribulation, exclaims: "I am filled with comfort. I exceedingly 
abound with joy in all our tribulation. In all things we suffer 
tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened but are not 
destitute; we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken; we are cast 
down, but we perish not. For which cause we faint not, but 
though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is re- 
newed day by day. He saith to me: "My grace is sufficient for 
thee, for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly, therefore, 
will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell 
in me." 

All this is something to make the pedagogy of the day stand 
aghast. In all its pharmacopoeia has it a drug to alleviate this 
mortal pain, has it a medicine to heal all or any of these wounds? 
If not, what is its purpose or its use? What does it claim to do 
for the will of man? If it puts forward no claim then it avows 
itself incomplete, inefficient, and unfit for the task committed to it — 
for the task it boasts it is able to fulfil. If pedagogy insists upon 
anything at all it insists that it comes as a benefactor of the race. 
Aristotle says that some of men's actions are the products of 
chance. Pedagogy in presence of chance is powerless. He pro- 
tests that at times human activity is set in motion by compulsion 
or by uncontrolled tendency of nature. Again, what part does 
pedagogy play on this particular theater of human causality? 
Habit or custom is another stimulus of men's deeds. Does 
pedagogy instil any other habits or create any other customs than 
those of intellectuality? Good or happiness is constantly eliciting 
this or that act from the human will. 

How far does pedagogy pretend to expound the true nature of 
good or of essential happiness? Even were its enlightenment on 
this prime mover of all voluntary acts as bright as the meridian sun, 



THE WILL 



75 



how much would it contribute toward leading the will, or to 
training the will, that it would choose rather the narrow and bleak 
road of self-denial than the primrose path of dalliance. 

The strength as well as the weakness of the will lies in habit. 
If habits are good, the will is strong in the proper sense of the 
word strong. If habits are bad, then the will is tossed about by 
the wind of every doctrine, and instead of being the dominant is 
the serf faculty of the individual. What the will needs is principles 
that are eternal in their wisdom and their origin. Nor is this all. 
Mere instruction, now that so many splendid maxims have forced 
their beauty upon the race, is not enough. These may capture the 
mind, but they do not take captive the will. Therefore, the will 
needs an auxiliary potent to help it over the many stiles it encoun- 
ters. That assistance is not within the gift of man, that assistance 
is found in the Omnipotent only. He comes with His grace, and 
His grace is sufficient for all things. Pedagogy unassisted can not 
give it. So the conclusion is forced upon all educators that 
pedagogy without religion is a rotten hose that can not put out a 
fire, a punctured life-preserver which can not keep a drowning 
man afloat. It is the flimsiest of pretenses and an insult and an 
injury to all whom it endeavors to befriend. 



76 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XV. THE MEMORY 

Every one understands what memory is, and appreciates its im- 
portance as a factor in the attainment and imparting of knowledge, 
and how much, too, it conduces toward enhancing all intellectual 
pleasure. The more defective the memory is the more impotent 
is the individual to enjoy what is worth enjoying in the past and 
the more isolated he finds himself in all intercourse with his fel- 
lows. Forgetfulness is sometimes a blessing, but nevertheless re- 
membering, too, is a blessing. In a way it is possessed by mere 
animals, but not along the same lines. 

Notions of the nature of memory have not undergone many, if 
any, changes since the days of the old philosophers. Plato called 
it conservatrix of perceptions, Aristotle conservatrix of species. 
Species are perceptions, and memory has the power of storing them 
away somewhere and bidding them appear on demand. Aristotle 
says hope is the sense of future things, memory of past ones. 
Whatever may have been excogitated since, the idea of memory 
is the traditional one, the one conformable to the hourly experience 
of all. Everybody admits that it is a faculty which enables us to 
retain modifications and ideas and judgments occurring in the past, 
and to recognize them as belonging to the past and not to the 
present. The memory, therefore, is the knowledge of things past 
as past and as having previously come under our notice. 

A good memory is alert to receive new things, sure and constant 
in holding them, and quick in recalling them. While we admit a 
phantasmal memory in brutes, the memory referred to here is the 
intellectual memory. It is not an added faculty of the soul, but it is 
the mind exercising its wonderful flexibility — a flexibility which al! 
the research of science and the ingenuity of invention have not been 



THE MEMORY 77 

able to discover in or bestown upon matter. Matter can not juggle 
with things as mind can, and so the latter must belong to an order 
of being transcending all the qualities of the former. 

Besides past events, memory summons up facts which are inti- 
mately and inseparably connected with them. We can not recognize 
past happenings without having it forced upon us that we were 
existent then, that we were in possession of our individuality, that 
we were the same men then as we are now and that during the in- 
terval our existence endured. Memory thus persuades us of our 
past existence, our individual identity and our uninterrupted per- 
severance in being. It is not wonderful that this gift has been 
highly prized. That it comes within the scope of pedagogy is quite 
apparent. That it can be learned was admitted from the beginning. 
The Mnemonic art is very ancient. Methods of assisting the 
memory are not of modern origin. Simonides, the poet, connected 
certain words and figures with certain determined points in space. 
In our own day the art is being taught and cultivated almost every- 
where. No one can find any legitimate opposition to it. 

The first mission of pedagogy is to assist nature in the develop- 
ment of all its powers. Like every art, like everything pedagogy 
undertakes to do, it is subject to abuse. Perhaps there may be 
overcultivation, as there is of gymnastics and other kindred arts. 
The doctrine of Albert the Great, it is said, was this: "There are 
no other precepts for the memory than to exercise it, and writing 
and thinking." St. Thomas holds that every faculty is strengthened 
by exercise and that the memory is more retentive of things which 
impress the fancy or are associated with other things better known. 
How indispensable memory is every one grants, and probably the 
first fact which pedagogy should impress upon the mind of youth 
is this very indispensability. 



78 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

Pedagogy should moreover insist on the importance of the old- 
time principle that no one is a man except in proportion as he pos- 
sesses a sound mind in a sound body. It may be easier to con- 
vince the young of the momentousness of a sound body. If they 
are convinced of this a sure and not a short step is made in the right 
direction. Bodily health is hygienic and moral. As to the dictates 
of morality, how far pedagogy, as it is generally known to-day, is 
in a condition to push them is not very difficulty to say. The 
truncated systems of education are powerless in the presence of 
certain obstacles. They can not "minister to a mind diseased." 

"Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous strife 
Which weighs upon the heart." 

There are maladies of the soul which disturb the sweet order 
of nature and which pedagogy in its twentieth century representa- 
tive can no more touch than the baying of a hound can reach the 
moon. There are maladies which educational training, such as it 
is, nearly everywhere to-day, not only is unable to heal, or even 
direct the healing of, but of which it takes no notice, has no care. 
"Therein the patient must minister unto himself." These disorders 
of a hidden nature sap everything which is finest in the youth, and 
the atmosphere of the modern school room is their choicest hunt- 
ing ground, and is incessantly breeding microbes which are full of 
moral infection and danger. This is the greatest crime of which 
pedagogy is guilty. It is a crime of indirection if you will, but still 
a crime. There is only one refuge, and that refuge is not even 
indicated by the theories which claim to contribute so much glory 
to the splendor of the times. 



THE MEMORY 79 

Memory and all intellectual activity are pearls, but pearls which, 
when flung into the cup of dissipation of any kind, melt and dis- 
appear. Is there any remedy offered for paresis and paranoia? 
They have no remedy. When they take possession of the individual 
then is the individual truly a prisoner shut up in his cell awaiting 
the hour for his execution, an hour which is inevitable. These poor 
and not wholly guilty victims are a libel on education, they are a 
refutation of the nauseating vauntings of an incompetent race, 
they nullify every boast that is made of modern civilization. There 
they stand, grinning specters, with long fingers outstretched in ac- 
cusation against the training which not of itself, but of its own 
criminal unwatchfulness, but of its own responsible deficiencies, 
have helped thrust these branded specimens of mankind into the 
dungeons wherein the body begins to decay, and the blighted mind 
and memory and will wear the stripes and carry around the ball 
and chain of condemned prisoners. It is unnecessary to state that 
when this doom falls upon a man there is no "purging him to a 
sound and pristine health." 

There is only one way to lessen the number of these decadents, 
and that way is the way not of cure, but of prevention. Needless to 
say that a sane and safe ethics is a preventive, but no matter how 
sane and safe is still insufficient. Ethics may lift the standard of 
morality, but it can not rally under it sturdy adherents. Principles 
of right conduct are bright lights, but they only show the way. 
They can not lead, or use the sweet violence which captures a man's 
will and takes so much of the bitterness out of self-sacrifice. We 
are drawn to the logical conclusion that if the world cares for 
morality it must call in the aid of religion. If ethics, even when in- 
dicating the only path, is so helpless, what must necessarily be the 



So CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

consequences of a moral philosophy which is godless and material. 
It were better to drop the curtain here. 

Matching colors in a kindergarten exercise, obtaining a law or 
general rule from the observation of particular cases, learning of 
dates, examples of the conjoint workings of similarity and con- 
tiguity, convergent and invergent associations, all these are without 
doubt powerful aids to the culture of memory, but they are not the 
most powerful or the only aids. But memory is a privileged func- 
tion of man's intelligence. In its flexibility it gazes around at the 
present and takes in all the past. But it calls for something on 
the part worth the looking at. It is an awful curse if the memory 
has only a blighted past to summon up — a blighted past foretelling 
a dreary future. 

Man's memory was not given him for gloom, but for radiance, 
and to remember white days gone by and bright years to come. 
This boon is accorded only to him who remembers his Maker from 
the days of his youth. 



TRUTH 8 1 



XVI. TRUTH 



Truth has many counterfeits in this world, and, alas! that it 
must be said they are so well fashioned that they frequently defy 
detection. In fact, they are not only mistaken for the genuine 
article, but in many instances they are preferred. Nay! they are 
not preferred merely, but they are cherished by their possessors 
to such a degree that not only will they not be given up, but every 
effort is made to convince others of their being superior to the most 
sterling coin in circulation. Such individuals, while they care not 
that they are under the spell of a lie, hug the monstrosity to their 
breasts with an ardor that brooks of no contradiction and will listen 
to no challenge. It still seems that the old myth has a foundation 
in reality, it still seems that truth dwells naked at the bottom of a 
well, and never appears without some covering or mark which dis- 
guises it and balks all identification. 

If truth was regnant this earthly abode would be a habitation 
much more desirable than it is now. Undoubtedly many disclosures 
would be made embarrassing and degrading. Many unconvicted 
criminals would be behind bars, many hypocrites would be made 
manifest and much hidden merit and unknown heroism disclosed. 
If truth prevailed for one day the whole world over, upon what 
changes and unexpected scenes the moon and the stars would 
look. Profit and loss would exchange places, and officials and 
rulers and superiors of all descriptions would be found shrinking 
from the gaze of those subject to their sway. "Then shall they 
begin to say to the mountains, fall upon us, and to the hills, cover 
us" (Luke xxiii, 30). There would be "signs on the sun, and moon, 
and stars, and on the earth distress of nations by reason of the con- 



82 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

fusion of the sound of the sea and of the waves, men withering 
away for fear and expectation of the things which are coming 
upon the world" (Luke 21). 

Such a day has not dawned as yet, but such a day will dawn. 
When Pilate asked Christ what is truth, was he asking for a defini- 
tion, or was his question simply a lament that in all this bewilder- 
ment of the accusations and demands made against the Saviour, he 
did not know where was truth, who was lying, who was guilty, or 
who was innocent. He knew most certainly what truth was, but he 
knew not where it was in that stirring hour when he was called upon 
to decide between the Man of Sorrows and the rabble who were 
hounding Him. 

The child knows what truth is. No one has ever lied deliberately 
without knowing that he was concealing something or making 
one thing appear another thing. There are more lies told than there 
are misdemeanors of any kind committed. Yet in spite of the pre- 
valence of unveracity there is no accusation stings more sharply, 
no accusation more deeply resented, than the accusation which vili- 
fies one as a liar. Call a man a liar and you insult him perhaps as 
in no other way he can be insulted. But it is the application that 
men dread more than the meriting it. It is the term they mind, 
not the thing. Of course, lying is not in itself the worst of crimes, 
though there is a pedagogy which teaches practically that it is bet- 
ter to be anything else than a liar. Still, lying leads to much 
wrong, is productive of much harm. Lie to a man's mind and you 
starve and poison it. Lie to a man's character and he may sink 
never to rise again. Lie to a man's heart and his faith not only 
in man, but in God as well, may be jeopardized. 

If the history of the evil wrought by prevarication is ever writ- 
ten it will reveal that a lie has been through all the centuries an as- 



TRUTH 83 

sassin, with arm uplifted and blade unsheathed, stabbing unto death 
the good name and the happiness of individuals, families and com- 
monwealths. Certainly teach the young the value of truth, teach 
the young the malice of untruth. Let him learn what a perversion 
it is of that precious gift of God, speech. Let him learn why God 
gave him a tongue. Let him understand that language is the 
bridge by which he is put in communion with his fellowman for 
that man's and for his own good. It has been given him to make 
others know the life that is within him, to make him know the 
thoughts he thinks, the wishes he conceives and the needs that 
have to be supplied. He is not forced to express any one of his 
thoughts, or any one of his wishes, but when he does tell his 
thought his lips must not go counter to his mind. If the mind says 
yes, the lips must say yes ; if the mind says no, then the lips must 
also say no. To do otherwise is to lie. 

When his son was taking leave of Polonius he impressed some 
sterling precepts on his memory, and among them this : 

"This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow as the day the night 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

The old courtier's idea of character is summed up in being false 
to no one and in being true to one's own self. It is the summing up 
of all that life is worth living for. What a man is the man who 
is true to himself! Such an one is true to the best that is in him, 
and what is best in him is the great natural law which imperiously 
commands him to do his duty toward God, himself and his fellow- 
man. 

The greatest calamity which can overtake the human race is the 
destruction of truth. This disaster reaches every man and every- 



84 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

thing in man. It is an insult to his mind, it is an injury to his body, 
to his moral and his material wellbeing. What has history been, 
what is it to-day? A conspiracy against the truth. Nearly all 
contemporary chronicling is exaggeration and misrepresentation. 
Journalism has discredited itself so largely that very few are satis- 
fied that it photographs the times as they are. Enter the world of 
business and of trade and again the same unreliability is found. 
Who trusts anybody or everybody to-day ? Legislation is constantly 
being summoned to come to the protection of the people against 
all kinds of fraudulent dealing. Adulterated food, adulterated 
drink, adulterated medicine, seem to be the order of the day. 
Honesty is no longer the best policy, and there is no crime which 
makes such a determined fight against law as the crime of dis- 
honesty. Public officials, magistrates, men in high places have been 
found venal. 

The most staggering proposition the community has to face 
to-day is the lie in every department of mind, of conscience, of 
commerce, of literature and of art. Certainly where there looms 
such a gigantic menace pedagogy must be doubly on its guard. 
But what can it achieve if there be prevarication in its own prin- 
ciples, in its own methods, if the views it supports are views which 
neither religion nor reason can sanction? If we pass from peda- 
gogy to the pedagogue the situation becomes more alarming. Com- 
mitted to untenable propositions, propositions which are gratuitous 
assertions at best, whither is he to turn? 

It ought never to be forgotten that untruth is untruth. It 
ought always to be remembered that the man who has been de- 
liberately a liar once can never obliterate the fact. No matter what 
his remorse, or his repentance, or his atonement, the fact remains 



TRUTH 85 

lhat at one time or other he was a prevaricator. This is among the 
reasons why the way of the transgressor is hard. 

Boys or girls must be taught the respectability of speech from the 
beginning. They must be convinced and persuaded that they are 
liable for all the consequences of their untruth. Precept may help 
thereunto, but precept is not the compelling will in the direction of 
truth. The professor must be instinct with the hatred of the lie, 
with love of truth. The preceptor who in the classroom has not 
the courage to say: "I do not know," when proposed a query the 
answer to which is outside his mental possession, that teacher is a 
pitiable object. Children may be brought to understand that their 
master does not, because no man can, know everything, but he 
is to them off the pedestal on which they have placed him when he 
misrepresents or is cowardly enough to give a stone when asked 
for bread. 

There are such terms as evasion and the like, but it is 
not given to every mind to see that, disguised though they 
be, they are still lies. The teacher while exemplifying the truth 
in all his speech must use a strong hand against tale-bearing. 
Very few can report the misdemeanor of another and keep the 
report within the limit of truth. It is generally a breeder of exag- 
geration and lies. That at times it may be an obligation of con- 
science can not be denied, but it is full of pitfalls for truth, and 
truth is too sacred a thing to be exposed to the vagaries of imagi- 
nation and the violence of jealousy, or any other human passion. 



86 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XVII. OBEDIENCE 

Order is nature's first law and obedience is order's chief help- 
mate. Without order there is only confusion and wild uproar and 
darkness and chaos. 

"The heavens themselves, the planets and this center 
Observe degree, priority and place, 
Insistence, course, proportion, season, form, 
Office and custom,, in all line of order." 

The Greek expression "Cosmos" signifies that all the beauty of 
the universe results from rule and order. There is no order without 
law, and law is powerless without obedience. The foundation, 
therefore, of all regularity and of all peace is obedience. It is a 
virtue surely that claims a place among the practises of men, and 
not the last place does it claim, nor is its principle of a nature to 
invite discussion or cavil. It is a claimant whose rights to rule have 
never been successfully disputed. Cancel this virtue and there arises 
in its stead either anarchy or might, more frequently might. But it 
is not in the designs of Providence that fear alone should keep 
men in obedience. Obedience is a duty and a virtue. Because it 
is a virtue it is estimable, because a duty it must be performed. 

Cicero has called virtue a habit of the mind, consistent with 
nature and moderation and reason. That obedience, when thor- 
oughly understood, fills all the demands of this description is ap- 
parent at a glance. Unless virtue is habitual it is no virtue. It is 
a spasmodic something unwatched by reason and entirely unre- 
liable. Virtue becomes a law unto oneself and, therefore, while 
a habit, must be in accordance with the dictates of a sound mind. 
Every virtue is controlled by the cardinal one of temperance, and 



OBEDIENCE 87 

hence obedience must be moderate. Immoderate obedience or 
unreasoning acquiescence is the fruitful parent of many evils, and 
in the end will produce the very disorder which is the aim of 
obedience to prevent. These very obvious notions are as essential 
as they are elementary. They are fundamental. Their obviousness, 
when we look around to-day at the moral world, and especially 
at those regions of it which lie within the province of pedagogy, is 
not immediately apparent. 

The schools of to-day can not always be labeled the homes of 
obedience. Far from it. The wild uproar that penetrates the 
school walls and deafens the public ear and is phonographed by the 
daily press, forces upon this generation the fear that discipline 
is not perfect and that obedience is not implicit. Many schools are 
the strongholds of little rebels. Many colleges and universities give 
evidence of an unrelish for order and a love of agitation which 
precludes the possibility of an atmosphere in which study and quiet 
find respiration, to say the least, difficult. The schools and colleges 
and universities are not altogether to be blamed. They deserve 
censure, however, for tolerating the condition as long as they have 
tolerated it. 

It is with the family, with the home, that severest reckoning is 
to be had. All institutions receive only what parents bring them. 
Sometimes the children are susceptible of the highest training; 
sometimes they are beyond the reach of all control. Home habits 
have destroyed all the raw material out of which improvement can 
be manufactured. Children come to school who never followed, 
since their babyhood, any will but their own. They were always 
insurrectionists, and the successful rebel becomes a tyrant, and 
these scions have tyrannized over parents, brothers, sisters and 
companions until the very ultimate spark of obedience is extin- 



88 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

guished beyond rekindling. School is no place for such a class. 
There are reformatories — send them there. The world seems to 
have turned upside down, and parents no longer command their 
children, but rather their children command them, and it is too 
well known how readily and entirely parents obey. 

No spirit of pessimism inspires these words. They are written 
after long observation and an impartial scrutiny of the relation in 
which parents and children, teachers and pupils, superiors and in- 
feriors stand toward each other. Remedies have been suggested. 
It is curious to notice how little has been said by pedagogues regard- 
ing moral influence and how strenuously they have emphasized the 
thirteenth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of Proverbs, which 
declares that "he that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he that 
loveth him correcteth him betimes." It has been said, and by those 
who had no desire to praise, that in the schools where religion is 
accounted as a not insignificant element in education, where the 
members of the church instruct, teach and visit, it has been said 
that in these schools there is a discipline springing from a spirit of 
obedience, which is as perfect as should be looked for where human 
agencies are employed in the upbringing of that most animal por- 
tion of the race, that is, the child. 

Yet animals are susceptible of training to a very marked degree. 
Their unfailing obedience is marvelous. Nor is this obedience 
always compelled by reflecting blows or hardship of any kind. 
Almost from the moment that the babe is laid for the first time 
in its mother's arms its training should begin. Habits of all kinds 
may commence to be formed. As the child grows, habits of obedi- 
ence become stronger, and then when reason enters the field it will 
find a willing confederate in all the prudent parental caution of the 
past. As the home is, so the boy is, so the girl is. 



OBEDIENCE 89 

School life and after-companionship may play havoc with home 
influence, but that influence never entirely fades, and the little 
glimmer which never dies may some day or other break out into 
a large and all-illuminating flame, showing the path which leads 
upward and to God. If the confession is a sincere one, the confes- 
sion that grants that the obedience to be found in schools to-day is 
only the offspring of fear and not the child of virtue, what does the 
pedagogy which takes no count of morality propose to do? The 
greatest weakness and the blackest disgrace of pedagogy, as it is 
furnished forth by men of note, men whose names are not empty 
ones in circles where education is esteemed, is its powerlessness in 
presence of crises and emergencies. No crisis, no emergency, is 
paramount to the danger so imminent as the danger of begetting 
in youth disrespect for authority. 

What are the motives held out to the young men studying here 
and there in this country to-day? They are told to study — they 
refuse and there is always and only the threat of no promotion. 
Riotous conduct has startled and antagonized some university town. 
The dismayed authorities have only the resource of a menace. 
Find out the offenders, they say, and they will be driven from the 
college. Punishing is not checking. Punishment follows the wrong- 
doing. Is there nothing antecedent to the crime ?. Is there nothing 
to give the young rioters pause ? Is there no inward appeal to their 
conscience, their manhood, their love of Alma Mater, the de- 
ference they owe the president and the faculty? There seems to 
be only contempt for authority. They laugh at castigation of any 
kind. Expulsion? Their predecessors did the same thing in the 
past and they received their degree and they are honored men in 
the community to-day. Must the secular arm be called upon to 
help? This would certainly be an avowal of weakness, this would 



9 o CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

bring about a kingdom within a kingdom, all of which would mean 
impaired usefulness, dishonest compromise and ultimate degrada- 
tion. 

Pedagogy seems not to understand what authority is, and, not 
understanding, how can it enforce obedience? All authority comes 
from God is the first principle to be admitted. No man, as mere 
man, has power over another. Whoever is the legitimate superior 
has that superiority from God. So that all obedience is the sub- 
jection to the will of God as manifested by all whom He has placed 
over us. This theory of obedience when reduced to practise makes 
the practise easy. It is God whom all are called upon to obey in the 
person of those who represent Him here. These representatives 
are the Church, its minister, parents, teachers, employers. This 
idea does not beget servility or fear. It is an honor inestimable to 
be a servant in the household of such a master. This ennobles 
obedience, and where the spirit of obedience rules, the earth be- 
comes impregnated with the salt of salvation. 

Disobedience brought all woes into the world, and there was 
need of an heroic obedience to rescue it. That redeeming obedience 
is the light of the world to-day. It is the obedience of Him who 
obeyed unto death, even unto the death of the Cross. "For as by 
the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the 
obedience of one, many shall be made just" (Rom. v, 19). 



HONOR 



XVIII. HONOR 



9 1 



Honor is a possession more precious than a crown. All claim it 
as theirs, but how many have it? As a guerdon it is not a single 
jewel, but a galaxy of precious stones. It is not the setting of man- 
hood, but it is the setting and the diamond together. It is the whole 
man. It is not declamation, but action. It is not speech, but deed 
and thought and language all in one. It is above the throne of the 
monarch, above the majesty of his scepter. It is not the appanage 
of place. "Honor and shame from no condition rise, Act well your 
part, there all the honor lies/' Therein is the essence of honor, the 
performance unto perfection of the role imposed upon us by the 
Maker at our birth. It is a word on every lip. It is appealed to uni- 
versally in every emergency. The man who is not honorable is dis- 
honorable, and is shunned by his kind. Who is the man of honor ? 
He is one who never lies to his God, to himself, to his fellows. He 
is one who is true through and through. 

Honor, since the beginning, has been the watchword, the slogan 
of humanity. There is a subtle something in it which attracts and 
awakens confidence. He who can say that everything is lost save 
honor can not die unwept, unhonored or unsung. Keeping honor, 
he has kept all that is worth the having ; flinging it away, he is poor 
indeed, no matter what untold sums may be in his coffers. So 
there is in honor a twofold aspect. It is, first, the integrity of the 
individual, his moral worth, and, secondly, the flashing out of that 
upon the eyes of men, its recognition by those with whom he moves 
and has his dealings. It is a substantial something, is honor. It is 
not reputation merely, but it is a good name built securely on the 
foundation of internal worth. 



92 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

Honor is not a thing which can be lost and restored by a bullet 
or a sword thrust, or by any letting of blood. Such reparation is 
none whatever, and is the senseless bravado only of unconsidering 
and headlong passion. Honor depends solely on the individual him- 
self. If he be unrecognized, or if he be calumniated, his honor still 
remains. His wife and his family and his closest friends may dis- 
grace themselves, but the taint can not contaminate the man of 
genuine honor. It is the man himself. As he is, his honor is. If 
he is compacted of the essential elements of honor he may be 
branded in life and in death, yet still his honor persists. It is so 
much the man himself that when he pledges his honor he pledges 
himself. If he breaks his pledge he breaks himself. Perhaps he 
may not feel this himself, but the world has judged him, and the 
judgment of the world is a right one. 

The one who does right at all times, under all circumstances, in 
private or in public, sick or well, poor or rich, in his most intimate 
thoughts, that one is the man of honor, and such an one rivets the 
gaze of admiring men and wins the approval of heaven. Scripture 
has another name for honor — it is justice. The highest tribute it 
pays to any of its heroes is the tribute that he is a just man. Anal- 
ized we find both terms interchangeable. The just man is one 
who, in the whole range of his activity, in all his aspirations, in- 
tentions, desires, aims at giving all concerned their due. He wrongs 
no one, he pays the debt he owes to God, to his neighbor and to 
himself. When his life closes everything in his career balances, 
and he enters the home of his eternity unshackled by any unfulfilled 
obligation, he enters unashamed and fearless, and confident, and 
the greeting of the Master is : Well done, thou good and faithful 
servant. Honor certainly can create nothing more perfect than this 
just man. 



HONOR 93 

There is a superficial honor which is a very poor substitute for 
the genuine reality. There are men who will neither lie nor steal, 
who will not be unjustly aggressive, who will "help lame dogs" in- 
numerable over stiles, and in so much are they to be commended. 
But is this the only duty of man ? Does not the inspiration of honor 
lead in other directions and toward the discharge of other duties? 
If they go by default, it they are never discharged, what about 
honor? Such honor is only the feather in the cap or the epaulettes 
on the shoulder, but it is not the whole uniform of the fighter in the 
warfare of existence. Such honor is only skin deep, and it is to be 
feared that such honorable men may have their price. The world is 
better off for having such men, but how much better off it would 
be were these men to stride further in the path of honor and stand 
sentinels protecting all that is worth saving in this so wretched vale 
of tears ! It is the wretched vale that it is just because they do not. 

This thorough conception of honor prevails among men only as 
an unattainable ideal. The honor that is sterling abides in heart 
and mind and hands. The honesty which keeps a man out of jail 
is not honor. The self-respect which holds a man's arm from 
striking a cowardly blow is not honor. The man of honor is the 
most fearless of men and the bravest. His manhood is never in 
abeyance, it is ever alive. He is a gentleman in the truest sense 
of the word. He is always at his post. He is always to be trusted, 
always and everywhere and with every one. 

Is this paragon an impossibility ? Does he exist only in the dreams 
of poets ? Thank God, no. Such a paragon is not only a possibility, 
but he is to be found among living, breathing men. He has played 
his part in history. He is not a solitary figure in Scripture. He has 
been found and can be found in every station. He has been found 
where the highest culture prevailed. He has also been found in 



94 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



circles where no pedagogy was able to penetrate. The world lauds 
him whose word is as good as his bond, and surely this footstool 
would be a summer clime were there multitudes of such men. 

Again, this is only one feature of honor. If such a man is your 
debtor you need pass no sleepless nights, your investment is safe, 
your loan will be repaid. All this is commercial honor, and to be 
possessed of it is to be rich indeed. So splendid a thing is it to-day 
that where it flourishes two conclusions may be safely deduced: 
either the one who conserves it has behind it the backing of the 
larger honor therein discussed, or where he has achieved so much 
a vigorous stride would plant his feet on the topmost heights. Here 
the old question can not be downed: How far does pedagogy, as 
we know it, go toward elevating character to this dignity? Can 
mere intellectual training fashion such a superior being? Does it 
enter into its scope? Does it consider it at all? 

No effect can transcend its cause. There is nothing in the educa- 
tion theories of these times which aims at it. There is nothing in 
those systems out of which such a perfection could be evolved. If 
one glances at the ideas which are in vogue in the domain of phil- 
osophy one sees not one which could give it birth. All views of the 
coryphaei who speak through megaphones in sonorous tones and 
who are oracles in matters relating to mind may be investigated, and 
outside those who have in their elaborations kept Christian land- 
marks in view, there is not an opinion advocated which, to put it 
very plainly, sees any need of honor, which makes any successful 
plea in its behalf, or which gives it a place among the foremost 
qualifications of the individual for the struggle of existence. 

Moreover, honor lies in the will. Ethics can show how reasonable 
it is and how beautiful and momentous, but that is all. There is 
demanded a strength for the will, a strength constant and over- 



HONOR 95 

coming, a strength superhuman. The dwarfed training tactics 
which are paraded so ostentatiously touch not the will. A complete 
pedagogical system must take this into account, otherwise the drill, 
no matter how laborious, will not produce fighters, such as are 
needed in the world. When man feels that he is succumbing under 
the pressure of temptation, of a temptation so paralyzing that he 
forgets rank, family, duties and all that he should die for, there is 
only one resource, and that is help from on high. He must stand 
fast on the faith and remember that without honor all is lost. 



9 6 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XIX. SELF-RESPECT 

Self-respect is undoubtedly the mainspring of all that is right 
and decent in the individual. It seems so natural to respect one's self 
and so easy, but is so difficult that it is always making demands 
which are not easy to indolent natures to grant and which suppose 
a self-sacrifice not always commonplace. One is more careful when 
pne has to answer for one's conduct to others and, for very patent 
reasons, one compromises with one's self without any very great 
effort. Self-love is at the bottom of it all. There will never be 
a superfluity of self-respect until the individual begins to appre- 
ciate himself at his real value. Men sell themselves into bondage 
at a discount always. If they only knew their own worth they 
would demand a larger price, perhaps a so much larger price that 
the purchaser would not be able to buy and thus the individual 
would be free. 

There is something so grand, so inspiring in freedom. God knew 
it and gave us liberty that even He Himself will not shackle save 
by the sweetest moral compulsion. So few realize what they barter 
away when they put their necks under the heel of any man ! "Every 
man has his price" is a saying which daily experience is emphatic- 
ally verifying. It is well that every man should have his price if 
that price is anything like an equivalent for what is surrendered. 
When men put themselves up for sale they ought, if they are at all 
commercial in their instincts, name as the ultimate sum the highest 
amount, and yet see for what insignificant values they exchange 
their manhood ! The price varies from ten cents — thugs have 
assassinated for as small a coin as that — up to ten millions. 



SELF-RESPECT 97 

The price that some vendors demand, however, and God be praised 
for it, can not be found in this universe, and in the whole world 
there is no bank that can furnish the bond. These last are the 
unfallen ones of the race. How numerous they are, it is an 
impossibility to reckon. Pessimists would say that not one such 
can be found in the stretches which lie between the poles. Opti- 
mists, that is rational optimists, who have experience, will admit 
that they are in larger numbers than is supposed, otherwise every 
vestige of good would have vanished from the earth. The balance 
of the world must be kept, otherwise very little of this very small 
globe of ours would be in the sunlight. Are there more venal 
than incorruptible men in the world? This is a departure in 
statistics which has not yet been made. Is there an equal number 
of both? Does it require equality on each side to even up the 
scales? Or is one honest man double or triple the weight of the 
dishonest one? 

Still there is a standard of judgment. In Genesis (xviii) we are 
told that the Lord with Abraham went their way to Sodom. "But 
Abraham as yet stood before the Lord, and drawing nigh he said: 
Wilt thou destroy the just with the wicked? If there be fifty 
just men in the city, shall they perish withal and wilt thou not 
spare the place for the sake of the fifty just, if they be therein? 
Far be it from thee to do this thing and to slay the just with the 
wicked, and for the just to be in like case with the wicked. This is 
not beseeming Thee, thou who judgest all the earth wilt not make 
this judgment. And the Lord said to him: If I find in Sodom 
fifty just within the city, I will spare the whole place for their 
sake. And Abraham answered and said: Seeing I have once 
begun, I will speak to my Lord, whereas I am dust and ashes. 
What if there be less than fifty just persons? Wilt thou for 



9 S CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY, 

five and forty destroy the whole city? And he said, I will not 
destroy it, if I find five and forty. And again he said to him, 
But if forty be found there, what wilt thou do? He said, I 
will not destroy it for the sake of forty. Lord, saith he, be not 
angry, I beseech thee, if I speak. What if thirty shall be found 
there? He answered, I will not do it if I find thirty there. 
Seeing, saith he, I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord. 
What if twenty be found there? He said, I will not destroy 
it for the sake of twenty. I beseech thee, saith he, be not angry, 
if I speak once more. What if ten should be found there? And 
Ihe said, I will not destroy it for the sake of ten. And the Lord 
departed, after he had been speaking to Abraham, and Abraham 
returned to his place." 

As a fact five were saved from destruction, and of the five 
one was turned into "a statue of salt." As to the rest: "And the 
Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha brimstone and fire from 
the Lord out of heaven. And he destroyed these cities and all 
the country about, all of the inhabitants of the cities and all things 
that spring from the earth." There is no need of an apology for 
the quotation. It is a rare one and it brings to mind some things 
worth remembering and suggests questions worth the asking and 
worth the answering. It would be entirely unwarrantable, perhaps, 
to assert that it fixes the percentage of just men in the world, but 
also, perhaps, it does establish the proportion of such individuals 
in the Sodoms and Gomorrhas of civilization. One point it does 
unmistakably settle and that is how much a few just men weigh 
before the Almighty. Who knows why Abraham ceased his petition 
when he did? Who knows whether the Lord would not have 
delayed the visitation of His anger if there had been one just 
man? Who can say that there was even one just man in that 



SELF-RESPECT 



99 



abomination of desolation? It may be that in that family of Lot 
alone was found the only self-respecting man. 

Self-respect is not outward demeanor or deportment. Self- 
respect is not respect for others merely, nor having a regard for what 
others may think or say or do. It is something more subtle. It 
lies very far below the surface. When we discover it we reach 
something that involves high principles and fundamental truths. He 
is a rare species, this absolutely self-respecting man. Self-respect 
is a just regard for and appreciation for one's own excellence. 
One's own excellence! This is saying everything and it is not 
saying too much. 

This consideration one is called upon to have for himself is not 
pride or conceit, nor even is it selfishness in the objectionable 
meaning of the term. It is esteeming one's self at one's real value, 
at the value put upon one by the Creator when He looked upon his 
handiwork and saw it was good. The first fact concerning him- 
self and which he is obliged to admit, is that were he alone in this 
world, that in it there is nothing in the majesty and beauty of it 
that does not lie at an immeasurable distance from him, that he 
is first and foremost in intrinsic importance. This is the long 
held view of man. His body is a masterpiece of marvelous per- 
fection enhanced by its companionship with an immortal soul. 
Body and soul in their wonderful union form an entity higher than 
which are the angels and God, and lower than which everything, 
that is not man, is. The body derives its special worth from the 
soul which vitalizes it, and which, when the span of years de- 
termined upon by Omniscience is passed, will call it back to itself to 
be reunited with it forever. 

Man's value has been vaguely determined when the Saviour asked 
"What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his 



loo CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

own soul? This is the standard of self-respect. If understood 
aright, man would respect his body and his soul. Respect of the 
body calls for a temperance and a purity so immaculate as to befit 
the temple of the Holy Ghost. Respect for soul commands the 
keeping mind and will and heart unspotted of the world and of all 
iniquity. Self-respect imperiously compels the respect of others. 
Who can measure the distance it goes in the direction of the forma- 
tion of character? It is self-love in its highest phase. It is no im- 
perfection and it checks the vile enormity of self-neglecting. 

"Let each man think himself an act of God, 
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God." 

This is the higher pantheism. Where in the whole range of 
unchristian pedagogy are its principles recognized or its lessons 
taught ? 



LAW ioi 



XX. LAW 



Law is the sentinel of humanity and the custodian of civilization. 
It is the force connecting individuality with each other and nations 
with nations. It is the energy which upholds order and protects 
it against chaos. Its majesty cannot be too much extolled, nor its 
necessity competently corroborated. Without it there is no living, 
no life, only disorder and death. After the Creator, it is what 
is noblest in the world. It is in fact the clearest and loudest 
and truest expression of the divinity. It breathes beauty into all 
things that are, it is the soul of all that commands the respect of 
men. It is the megaphone of the Almighty, and its tones are heard 
from end to end of the earth. These commonplaces have been 
uttered since the beginning and, lest we forget, they are to be 
dinned and dinned into the ears of all. Always repeated, there is no 
satiety in the repetition. The highest minds have thought after 
this fashion. The law is for everybody and no one is exempt. For 
"as the law is set over the magistrate," says Cicero, "even so are 
the magistrates set over the people." And therefore it may be 
truly said that the magistrate is a speaking law and the law is a 
silent magistrate. 

To quote literature when and where it speaks of the dignity of 
law would be an endless task. This points unmistakably to the 
reverential awe with which the law is regarded. Men may break 
the law, but somewhere or other within them is a latent respect 
for it. There are laws human and laws divine. Human laws are 
but the copies more or less imperfect of the eternal law. It is 
this eternal law which is the well undefiled from which are drawn 



102 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

all the laws which bind mankind. The recognition of this eternal 
law is of supreme importance, and it alone makes for all observ- 
ance. We might call the eternal law an act of God's will by which 
necessarily and from all eternity he decrees that all his creatures be 
directed, suitably to their natures, toward an end which He 
appoints. This law is so universal that it extends not alone to 
the moral world of rational beings but to the physical world too. 
It is compulsory not only for the order of nature but for the super- 
natural order as well. 

St. Thomas distinguishes this law from Providence. "Provi- 
dence," he says, "is not the eternal law in God but a consequence 
of it." The task of Divine Providence, if we may use the word 
task, is to see that the law decreed from all eternity be plenarily 
fulfilled in the progress and consummation of all things. These 
are not useless considerations because they furnish the basis of all 
morality, of all moral obligation and of the moral efficacy of all 
human legislation. It was recognized dimly, but surely, by pagan 
philosophers. The so often cited passage of Cicero bears testimony 
to this: "It has been the conviction of the wisest among men that 
a law exists not framed by human ingenuity nor the outcome of 
popular approval, but a something eternal, which governs the uni- 
verse by sage commands and prohibition. They called that imperial 
and fundamental mandate the divine mind, ordering something and 
forbidding others. It began to exist when the divine intelligence 
began. Hence this real and supereminent law is nothing else but 
the infallible reason of the Supreme God." 

In another place the same philosopher emphasizes more markedly 
the same view of law. "There is an undoubted law proceeding 
from an all-seeing mind, a law in harmony with nature, promul- 
gated everywhere, constant, sempiternal. It calls by a command 



LAW 103 

to the performance of duty, and by a prohibition it deters from 
wrong. It never forbids or orders anything in vain to the upright, 
and the wicked, whether it forbids or commands, are unmoved by it. 
This law must not be abrogated nor must the least thing derog- 
atory to it be permitted. In its entirety it must remain unchanged. 
Nor senate nor people have the right to amend or destroy it. It 
needs no expounder nor interpreter. It is not one law at Rome, 
another at Athens, nor one law now and another then, but all 
nations and all times are obligated by its everlasting and immutable 
sway, for its sole framer and legislator is the Master of all, God. 
He is the founder of this law, its interpreter and mouthpiece. Who- 
ever refuses allegiance is untrue to himself, despises the nature of 
man, and in this way undergoes the greatest of all tortures, no 
matter how many of her so-called penalties he may escape." This 
assertion that the law will be its own avenger is surprisingly like 
many of the utterances of the Apostle of the Gentiles. 

Two or three centuries before Cicero, Sophocles puts the 
following words on the lips of the Chorus : "Would that it were 
given me to pursue that holy integrity of words and deeds which 
is sanctioned by that sublime law, begotten in the celestial abode 
by the Olympian father alone, which, man left to himself, one 
could never dream of and which he will never be able to obliterate, 
for the great God, whose years never fail, is its author." Again, 
the same writer makes Antigone give this reason for refusing to 
obey the unjust mandate of the king. "Your laws are not those 
of Jove nor of Justice who resides among the inferior deities. I 
cannot believe that any edict of yours, mortal that you are, can 
nullify the unwritten but unshaken laws, which were sanctioned 
not yesterday nor the day before, but have flourished in every age, 
and no one can tell how far back the date of their birth goes." 



104 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The object of these citations is to show that from the very 
beginning there existed a law which bound all men to obedience, 
to show, moreover, that from the divine mind and from the divine 
will have sprung the essential laws which govern all things, animate 
and inanimate, and all according to the constituents of their indi- 
vidual nature, inanimate beings by inflexible rules, purely animal 
beings by instinct, man by moral obligations, which, while they 
in no way influence him physically, put him under the moral 
coercion to advance toward his development along lines worthy 
of his freedom and his intelligence. 

Law for man is his destiny here and hereafter. Law is his per- 
fection. Law from the performance of his first responsible act 
is an abiding presence with him. If he endeavor to disregard it, 
which it is not in his power to do utterly, he will be punished 
by the very reproach of that law rebuking him menacingly through 
the voice of his conscience. It is not difficult to admit that one 
of the first maxims to be inculcated is that law must be respected, 
that it is never set aside without disaster and remorse, that it is 
well for a man to obey the law willingly because it is bad to dis- 
obey it willingly, because sooner or later, whether he will it or not, 
obey it he must. 

Pedagogy by the very nature of its office must recognize the 
importance of law, must insist under all circumstances on that 
importance being recognized by the child. But there is the rule ! 
Those who come under the ministrations of educators are reason- 
able beings and they demand the why and the wherefore of all 
things and they will not be put down by yea and nay. The age 
which apotheosised the Ipse dixit is verily a thing of the past and 
of a very distant past. Reasons are asked for by everyone and 
for everything. 



LAW 105 

Wo betide the pedagogue whose repertory is poorly stocked in 
these times of incessant interrogation. Yet no teacher need be 
dismayed, no teacher worthy of the name, no teacher who has 
conscientiously prepared for the work to which he addresses him- 
self. A reason and a satisfactory one can be given for everything, 
especially for everything which revolves upon or concerns the 
chiefest human interests. What principles can pedagogy advance 
upon which to build up a respect for law or from which he may 
deduce affirmations or negations in favor of its majesty and its 
obligatory power? There seems to be only one needed. Law is 
the voice of authority, and all authority is God-given. God's right 
is inalienable and undeniable. God's right to command men and 
to compel men to obey other men legitimately placed over them. 
In no other way can law be explained or understood. In no other 
way can the norm of morality be established and on no other found- 
ation can repose moral obligation. 

Any system of philosophy which does not affirm the existence of 
a God Creator, is powerless to rear a standard of morality and 
powerless to lay down a basis of moral obligation. There is no 
morality where there is no creator, there is no morality worthy 
of the name or possessed of integrity without religion. A semblance 
there may be, but whatever the semblance it is only a rag torn from 
the standard of all goodness set up on the mountain in the Ten 
Commands, and still floating like a glory over that Church which 
is appointed as the sole teacher of mankind, and which alone lights 
up the minds and strengthens the will in the direction of morality 
and law. 



io$ CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XXI. REWARD AND PUNISHMENT 

Reward and punishment may be called the secular arm of the 
majesty of law. Without them law is inefficacious to an alarming 
degree. They uphold it and are its necessary adjunct. Take them 
away and who obeys? The lawgiver who attaches no sanction to 
his legislation is, for the masses, a sound and nothing more. There 
is a solemn cant blatant in these days, in fact, in all days, which 
proclaims that man should do the right thing and shun the wrong, 
because right is right and wrong is wrong and therefore should be 
done or should be avoided for their own sake alone. 

George Eliot, it is recorded, in one of her solemn moments made 
the sublime utterance that humanity has three watchwords: God, 
immortality, duty. "There is no God," she continued, "there is no 
immortality. The only thing left us is duty." She was as illogical 
as she was unpragmatic. Deprive the race of God and you will 
seek in vain for immortality. Cancel immortality and duty will be- 
come a meaningless term, a mere catchword of frenzied feminin- 
ity. Duty for duty's sake has never inspired noble deeds. It 
wears the mien of unselfishness, but behind it there is inanity and 
much smug conceit. One does one's duty because one's duty it is, 
but one's duty it is because there is somewhere or other an authori- 
tative legislator who has the right to lay down the law for us and 
because we are under the moral necessity of harkening to His voice. 

How long would the race persevere were duty, for its own dear 
sake, the maxim of civic and domestic conduct? It is needless to 
say that there is something unworthy of man in the attitude of him 
who is led only by the hope of reward or by the fear of punishment. 
Yet the man who obeys God because he is moved by apprehension 



REWARD AND PUNISHMENT 



107 



or by hope of something present or future is certainly in no way 
inferior to the man who submits because his reason tells him it is 
a more beautiful thing to act ethically than otherwise. The one is 
by implication a worshiper of a superior being, the other by infer- 
ence kneels down to himself. When self-worship becomes a re-! 
ligion then 'ware the world! Then farewell duty and order and 
peace, and fling open the doors — fling them open, otherwise they 
will be forced from their hinges — to let in all evils, to unkennel the 
dogs of all the passions, and so destroy the principles of universal 
justice and brotherly love and minimize all noble action. Thus the 
great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and 

"Leave not a wrack behind." 

Altruism, as it is expounded, is another of those supposed magic 
words which are to fill the souls of men and the world at large 
with sweetness and light. It must be remembered that we are by 
our very nature self-centered. The world has two motions. It 
moves on its own axis and it revolves around the sun. So with 
man: he rotates upon himself and his whole being circles around 
the Creator. Without the sun the axial activity of the earth would 
not be and without God the existence of man would be mythical 
only. Hence this utter annihilation of self that is demanded by 
altruism, independently of other considerations, is an impossibility. 

The saints have loved God unselfishly, yet they in their own per- 
sonality were the center and spring of that love — they loved and 
not another. Even when they went to that mysterious degree of 
self-stripping that they clamored to be anathema, to be wiped 
out of the book of life for their brethren, it was their best and 
most conscious self from which the magnificent sacrifice emanated- 
And He, the Master, the Preceptor, the Peerless Pedagogue (for 



108 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

where was there such another teacher?) in the most sublime 
discharge of duty, asked the Father why He had abandoned Him 
and into His hands commended His spirit, for it was Christ and 
not another who was humiliated and crushed and who died. He 
died most surely for us, but it was He who consummated the 
ineffable oblation and no other. The agent and his act are in- 
separable. 

Punishment and reward are influences in ail deliberate action. 
Man is so constituted that he must be either enticed by the one or 
deterred by the other. So the nature of man and the reputation of 
the lawgiver and his concern for his own legislation are all involved 
in the sanction which accompanies his mandates. This is true of all 
law, divine, human, natural and positive. The dealing out of pun- 
ishment and reward is no small part of a teacher's task, and it 
works either for the advantage or disadvantage of both master and 
pupil, and so genuine pedagogy calls for a sound treatment of their 
necessity, nature and condition. Any species of fantastic views in 
the matter is to be relegated to the most distant background. 

It is safe to be convinced from the start that the class in which 
penalties are not attached to infraction of law or in which rewards 
are not offered for application and orderly conduct is a class which 
exists nowhere except in Utopia or in the unpractical brain of 
dreamy theorists. Who is to administer punishment and in whose 
hands is to lie the distribution of premiums are questions of no little 
moment. There is the larger problem of corporal castigation which 
is calling for a solution in these days of ours. There was very 
little difficulty in its settlement during a long past which is not very 
far away. The abolition of it will not lead to an abiding verdict. 
It will come up again and again, for if there is one sure conclusion 
which the forbidding of corporal punishment of one kind or of 



REWARD AND PUNISHMENT 109 

another must necessarily compel the world to reach, it is the con- 
clusion that suffering of some kind must be inflicted upon refractory 
boys and girls, otherwise there will be dismay and defeat in the 
army of teachers, and indolence and insolence and riot and disorder 
in the ranks of the scholars. 

Sentimentalism is not real sentiment, it is only a counterfeit 
thereof. It is mawkish. It is a mere weakling and from it can 
never spring a guiding influence on a principle of salvation. When 
a teacher is convinced that his laws and the laws of his school or 
college must have a sanction he must study not only his own feel- 
ings, but the character of the children entrusted to him. This 
analysis will reveal the first important fact which should never be 
lost sight of: the fact that all under him must not be treated alike, 
that some are helped rather by reward than by punishment, that 
some can not be punished at all. 

Probably the most impressive as well as the most effective mode 
of discouraging laziness and bad conduct is to take away some of 
the ordinary privileges of school routine. This suggests many 
varieties of procedure and, while helpful in the matter of study and 
discipline, caters very innocently to the feelings of the sentimental- 
ist, for whom the best corrective is the handing over to him or to her 
for just one school day a class of healthy boys or girls. A teacher 
while under the obligation of administering some or other penalty is 
surer of his success when his determination is rather toward reward. 
Reward and punishment must go hand in hand. All punishment 
would demoralize an institution just as no punishment would pro- 
duce the same result. 

There is nothing in the teacher so manifest to the lynx eye of the 
pupil as the motive which controls when the sanction is being 
executed. If the teacher is moved by anger, if it is love of himself 



no CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

and not a desire for order which urges, if he is bound to get the 
best of his disciple, if he is partial, if he is not animated by the 
strictest spirit of justice, then it were better for him that he had not 
usurped the vocation of pedagogue and it were better for the stu- 
dent likewise. Strongly and sweetly is the motto for all disciplin- 
arians. 



MANNERS in 



XXII. MANNERS 

Manners, like apparel, "oft proclaim the man." In fact we are 
drawn to or repelled by our fellows more on account of their 
demeanor than of anything else which their exterior may hide 
or reveal. For this reason it is almost impossible to overstate the 
very great importance of cultivating deportment. Lord Chester- 
field hardly ranks among the safe mentors of young or old. But 
his experience, whether good or bad, has moved his pen to write 
unmistakable truths. "Manners," he says, "must adorn knowledge 
and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough dia- 
mond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity and also 
for its intrinsic value, but it will never be worn nor shine, if it is 
not polished." 

We lavish a great deal of forbearance on the rough diamond, but 
it is not difficult to perceive that if the roughness were removed it 
would be better for all and in the long run; if the edges remain 
we lose sight of the gem and cease to be patient, and perhaps go 
to the length of suspecting the genuineness of the stone. Again 
there is a tendency to admit that it makes very little difference 
what a man's manners may be, that the only thing to be taken into 
account is what the man is. This is a dubiously true averment. There 
is truth in it, but it does not state the whole truth. Of course one is 
only what he is. Yet it must not be forgotten that man's manners 
are a part of himself and they must be reckoned with in every at- 
tempt to totalize an individual. If they are good they are to be 
included in his measurement; if they are bad they have to be 
deducted. 

Moreover, most men, in fact all jnen with whom there is no 



H2 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

prolonged intercourse, are indexed to us by their method of carry- 
ing themselves exteriorly and by that only. Besides, in the main, 
talk as much as one pleases of the rough diamond variety of our 
species, one is on the average very nearly what he appears. There 
is a psychological connection between matter and mind, body and 
soul. The interior generally reflects itself on the exterior on ac- 
count of this very intimate union between body and soul. 

It must be admitted, likewise, that manners are in some cases, and 
may always be used as, a mask to screen hideous moral delinquen- 
cies. This does not militate against the cultivation of politeness, 
but only against abuse. Anything may be abused. One may put 
to a bad use even learning itself. This science of pedagogy has 
suffered agonies and in many instances gives, in the senseless 
inanities it upholds, evidence of the terrible ordeal through which 
it has passed at the hand of ignorant and cruel and debasing 
agencies. 

Yes, manners must, by no means, be neglected. Some are born 
gentle, some achieve gentleness, some have gentleness thrust upon 
them. The schoolroom will divide itself into these three groups. 
It is with the last group chiefly that the struggle is on, but it is a 
fight worth the fighting, for education calls for manners and those 
who have no manners must for the sake of their fellows have man- 
ners thrust upon them. Those whose gentleness is native will need 
encouragement in order not to degenerate or to succumb to the 
influence of a lowering environment. 

"Since every Jack became a gentleman 
There's many a gentle person made a Jack." 

It is hard to bear the grand old name of gentleman without abuse 
— a name which is "defamed by every charlatan, and soiled with all 



MANNERS 



ii3 



ignoble use." There have been many definitions of the term "gentle- 
man" given and when the true one is found we will discover the 
true meaning of "manners." Probing the subject as deeply as it is 
allowed us we will find that as there is no life in the body from 
which the soul has departed, so there are no genuine manners 
without an inner principle to give them being first, and then vitality, 
and finally form and beauty. The gentle mind by gentle deeds is 
known and there will be no gentle deeds without the gentle mind. 

It is incontrovertible, therefore, that manners can be built upon 
a man's interior only. So we are brought, as in every matter apper- 
taining to education we must be brought, we are brought to the 
inevitable truth, the inexorable truth, that mind culture alone is not 
sufficient, that the soul, that is the will, that is the heart, must not 
be left untouched by pedagogy. 

Once more we are comforted with the dominant thought of these 
papers, the thought that all education is imperfect without moral 
training, and that all beauty of living as well as of seeming must 
spring from that comeliness which can be born of man's loyalty to 
the suggestions of religion which speak to man of his attitude 
toward himself and toward his fellows as well as toward his God. 
There is no gentleman possible — no gentleman in the very highest, 
in the ideal sense of the word, without the influence of the religious 
principle. 

Cardinal Newman has essayed the definition of the gentleman and 
how successful his attempt has been is attested by critics no matter 
what their denominational bias. Summarily, the great ecclesiastic 
says that "a gentleman is one who never inflicts pain, who carefully 
avoids whatever may cause a jar or jolt in the minds of those with 
whom he is cast. He is tender toward the bashful, gentle toward 
the distant, and merciful toward the absurd, He is never mean or 



II4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

little, has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing 
motives to those who interfere with him and interprets everything 
for the best." This is his idea of the one who is nature's gentle- 
man, whose comportment is based on merely human foundations. 

But how long will a man unaided by religious motives persevere 
in this enviable attitude toward men. All these lineaments may be 
traceable in the exterior and as long as they are observable the 
possessor of them will be considered flawless. It is to be feared 
that if the incentives of action are not in accord with the act itself, 
it is to be feared that in private and unguarded moments the polish 
will not survive the attack of passion or of the brunt of failure or 
the rival's success. The repression of self is the only guarantee of 
manners, perfect and abiding. Manners call for constant sacrifice 
of self. The Sermon on the Mount is the best manual of social 
polish and culture which has ever been given to the world. Christ 
was the gentleman beyond compare. Isaias predicted of Him 
(xlii, i) : "The Lord will put his spirit upon him and he shall show 
judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not contend nor cry out, neither 
shall any man hear his voice in the streets. The bruised reed he 
shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not extinguish." Here is 
the perfect idea of what genuine manners can effect in an unman- 
nerly world because it insists on the action of that spirit from whom 
alone all perfection springs. Pedagogy must demand the genuine 
in everything. It must allow of nothing superficial, it must insist 
energetically on everything being thorough. 

There is no force stronger in education than the force of example. 
The Great Preceptor commanded nothing which He had not done 
Himself. How potent the professor can be in his intercourse with 
his pupils is beyond the need of being illustrated. He who from his 
chair proclaims by his demeanor the qualities of a true gentleman 



MANNERS n'5 

or of a true gentle lady will speak victories. Meekness in its splen- 
did Gospel meaning and as it touches the heart of Christ, modesty, 
self-control, honesty of purpose, veracity of statement are the equip- 
ment of the man of manners, and the tutor who possesses them will 
possess that land of infinite possibilities, the heart land of those 
whom he instructs; without them the tide will come in his affairs 
which will sweep him and his to shoals and rocks and things un- 
utterable. 



Ii6 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XXIII. CONCEIT 

It would be no easy task to learn what view popular pedagogy, 
in the light of the easy principles it follows, takes of the frailties of 
human nature. It would be a simpler performance to prove that it 
scarcely touches them. In fact, outside of plans of instruction, it 
formulates no method whereby mind and heart may be purged of the 
perilous stuff which must surely damage both, where those systems 
have been allowed to prevail that are unbaptized and have not been 
dipped in the waters of Christianity. Mental disease, especially 
when the sickness is a moral infection, is rarely if ever treated. 
Train the mind, pour into it all the information procurable from 
any and every source, organize the seething elements, eliminate chaos 
and diffuse light, and, lo! the work of pedagogy is done, and, lo! 
the child is formed and ready to encounter any enemy however 
strong ! 

Illumination of the mind and nimbleness of the faculties is the 
only goal it seems ambitious to reach. In its pharmacopoeia it holds 
no tonic for the soul. To know, and to know, and again to know, is 
the chief, if not the only, doctrine which it preaches f i om its pulpit. 
A completely fashioned intellect is its principal aim. It comes to 
humanity with the proclamation that knowledge will make men, like 
gods, able to pluck from the tree good and evil together, caring 
little how much the evil contaminates the good, caring less that 
the evil is more palatable than the good. It will inculcate most 
assuredly the need of manners, but it is empty handed where there 
is question of what is more needful than manners, more needful 
than anything that attracts the attention of men. It is the bark that 



CONCEIT 117 

it contemplates the strengthening of, and it is reckless of the rich, 
wholesome sap, without which there is no health in bark or leaf or 
branch or blossom or fruit. It forgets that the soul must wear a 
royal garb as well as the body, and that it is from the interior that 
all force must flow to the exterior. 

It says, of course, be not proud, be not conceited, be not selfish, 
but it gives no lessons in humility and brotherly love and self- 
sacrifice. This weakness, or rather this incompleteness, it very sel- 
dom imputes to itself, because it is unaware of the true value of 
things, and in addition knows not where to look for the all important 
gift of discernment. It is obvious that while it pays no attention to 
many things of moment it is indirectly making itself responsible for 
more than a few of the characteristics which, in these times, impair 
their efficacy for civilizing purposes, and render powerful agents of 
evil to the commonwealth those who are sent out with approval from 
schools and colleges everywhere. 

Manners are an indispensable requisite for comfortable living, but 
they mean a higher living than is existence if tfiey are the outcome 
of mental balance and moral soundness. The rule of the golden 
mean applies to them as it does to other human conditions. Man- 
ners easily degenerate into mannerisms, which, if excessive, produce 
the harlequin and the mountebank, and which, if not, generate the 
faddist and the bore, who, in a step, loses all politeness and becomes 
the boor. Conceit conduces potently to the causation of these ex- 
crescences. It is very much abroad in the land. It sits like a grin- 
ning ape upon so many shoulders and chatters in the speech of so 
many tongues. 

To be in conceit with oneself is to be out of conceit with the rest 
of the world, or rather to find the rest of the world out of conceit 
with us. It is a little failing, but like the little acorn, from it comes 



n8 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

a monstrous growth. It makes us laugh, but soon the laugh changes 
into derision and contempt. Perhaps the easier way of getting at an 
understanding of this moral ailment is to ask ourselves searchingly 
why a conceited man is always a disgusting, or if not a disgusting a 
laughable, spectacle for us. The source of his conceit is undoubtedly 
his opinion of himself. This opinion is not always an exaggerated 
one ; generally, however, it is. Its basis is a desire for the praise of 
others, and there is no mistaking the fact that he is eager for it 
because he considers it due to him. In pursuit of commendation it 
is that he uses the language and does the deeds which compel ridi- 
cule. It is silliness unpardonable on his part, but it is not always 
evidence of brainlessness. 

Some able individuals have been conceited and have in many in- 
stances drawn down upon themselves the sneers of their fellows. 
Let us be honest. We perhaps vent our spleen on these harmless 
ones because of a treacherous inclination on our part to resent any- 
one thinking himself better than we are. This sentiment is a 
natural one, but not of the best. We assume that a man who deems 
his qualifications superior to ours and shows this attitude, is pitying 
us because we are not as great as he. This cuts and hurts, and in 
our supposed righteous indignation we find ourselves guilty of the 
same estimation of ourselves which we call overweening vanity 
in him. 

If only someone would give us the gift to see ourselves as others 
see us, most surely it would free us from many a blunder and from 
many a foolish notion regarding ourselves and others. Yet con- 
ceit is not manly — nay, it is not human. Why should the spirit of 
mortal be proud ? Pride is responsible for vanity and all the conceit 
that has been witnessed since the beginning of things. Where does 
pedagogy find or present a remedy for pride or selfishness, which 



CONCEIT 119 

lies still deeper ? As to the conceited person, it were better to leave 
him alone. 

George Eliot says: "I have never any pity for conceited people 
because I think they carry their own comfort with them." We are 
not obligated to pity them. The duty that lies before the pedagogue 
is to teach his disciples the true value of things, that if the world 
were to rain down all its plaudits upon us it would change us noth- 
ing. The dwarf on the highest hill is still a dwarf, and no elevation 
will make him a giant. What is said of the world is to be said of the 
individual. No thinking on his part makes him other than he is. 

St. Paul teaches (I Cor. iv) that all distinction comes from on 
high. ''For who distinguished thee ? Or what hast thou that thou 
hast not received? And if thou hast received why dost thou glory 
as if thou hadst not received it ?" This is the magic thought which 
helps man keep himself where he belongs. The fact that all we have 
has been given us, that there is nothing, strictly speaking, our own 
but our sins, is a fact which when allowed to penetrate our mind 
will go far toward calming troubled breasts and subduing swelling 
minds. "Lowliness is the base of every virtue, and he who goes 
the lowest builds the safest." The sagest of men have subscribed 
to this doctrine "that no man will learn anything at all, unless he 
first learns humility." This virtue endears us to God and to man. 
It puts a man in his place, and the man who is not in his place where 
he belongs is the veriest misfit, and jolts others and is jolted 
himself. 

"Humility, that low, sweet root 
From which all heavenly virtues shoot." 

All this is true of the preceptor as well as of those over whom 
he has charge. Example goes very far in plucking up conceit. The 



120 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

greatest learning has been so frequently associated with a lowly 
opinion of oneself. Pride is the easiest depth for a man to fall into, 
and humility is the hardest virtue to practise. It can never exist 
where irreligion abides. It can never be taught by any system of 
education save that which is the handmaiden of religion and looks 
upon God as the Alpha and Omega of all things. 



RESPECT FOR OTHERS 121 



XXIV. RESPECT FOR OTHERS 

There are very few human breasts in which every spark of respect 
for others is extinguished. It is alive even in the mind of the man 
who has lost all respect for himself. It is a sentiment to which 
much of peace and order and happiness in life is due. It is a senti- 
ment which must be developed, because the large issues of life, and 
surely the large issues of education, depend upon it. Whatever con- 
duces to maintaining it contributes in no little degree to the con- 
servation and purification of civilization. What is respected will 
not be overthrown or disregarded, and will by its very nature be a 
barrier against any threatening or malign influence. Without it 
education is rather a curse than a blessing. 

It is in bad taste, this finding fault with the times of which we are 
a part, but only when it proceeds from a carping spirit or from 
motives that are unworthy. Still it is not necessarily pessimism, 
or if it be, it is of a kind that spurs on and up. Only the pessimism 
which cries wo! wo! without hope, is dangerous, just as the op- 
timism which says, Well done! indiscriminately, is a foe to be 
struggled against in season and out of season. Censure, after the 
fashion of a scold, is intolerable, but when it is in the expression of 
sympathy and encouragement then it, too, is to be respected. 

It can not be denied that to-day respect is not the vigorous factor 
that it was, that it is not the prevailing spirit. We may ask, and ask 
in the fear that the reply must be negative, whether the young re- 
spect the old, inferiors their superiors, children their parents, wives 
their husbands, husbands their wives, the multitude their religion, 
the world its God? Here in America the Old World way of re- 
spect, and in the Old World the old-time way of respect, for other 



122 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

men and things have undergone strange mutations. Not in the 
fashion of the day did the fathers of the republic interpret those 
watchwords of the race: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
To-day it is life, any kind of life, and at any cost. To-day it is 
liberty without respect for the liberty of others. To-day it is the 
pursuit of happiness no matter on what road or with what means. 

Respect for ideals is fast waning, and anything that savors of 
lofty aspirations is called quixotic. It is beyond cavil that respect 
conserves, and want of it annihilates, and disrespect covers with 
insult. If a husband respects not his wife she becomes to him as if 
she were no wife. If a child has no respect for its parents they are 
to him as if they were not his parents. It is this annihilating force 
which takes the place of vanished respect that is the most regrettable 
feature. The man who has no respect for God has no God; who 
has no respect for religion has no religion. When the world falls 
into this slough it is very low indeed, and no one can tell how soon 
its best institutions will be swamped. 

What is it brings an individual to have no more respect for things 
that are of the greatest moment to himself and to all his fellows — 
no more respect for religion, no more respect for authority, no more 
respect for the obligations which flow from the essential relations 
and conditions of existence? Is he to blame or are others? The 
answer to this can be given only by the one concerned. But let 
he himself be to blame or let others be at fault, his symptoms are 
dangerous and remedies must be applied. 

The causes for the disease are superficial, many and various, but 
close investigation will reduce them to two or three. Some eye 
religion askance because they are not satisfied with its ministers. 
It is a swift process this identifying the minister and the religion, 
but oftentimes sufficient data are not at hand, and it is always 



RESPECT FOR OTHERS 123 

illogical. Environment plays an active role. The abdication of the 
principles which sweeten humanity is more contributory than many 
other causes, and there is nothing which leads more swiftly to judg- 
ments against a man's character than his proclamation that Church 
and God are mythical, medieval and superannuated ideas, and alto- 
gether opposed to that grotesque thing which is called the world's 
progress. 

Above all, systems of education are censurable in this relation. 
These systems in a general way may be styled Godless ones. They 
have no place for the Creator, save perhaps on the inscriptions over 
their portals. Their very existence is a disclaimer against all moral 
training which they are not permitted, except in the most indirect 
way, even to hint at. It belongs not to their commission, a depar- 
ture from which would involve them in endless difficulties. In how 
many plans of studies, as afforded by the various educational es- 
tablishments which dot the country, is there provided a scheme 
which will inculcate those theories, or rather those really scientific 
principles, without which there is no security against the inroad of 
erroneous views, which sap the mental and moral foundations of 
the land! 

It is this propagation of ideas, so destructive of the first notions 
relative to the nature of the world and of man and of God, which is 
the well spring of this absence of respect for others that in so many 
instances we are called upon to deplore. God is not. Why think 
of Him, why consider Him, why respect Him? God banished as 
a useless idea from the thoughts of peoples, what basis of authority 
is possessed ? Forms of government may be legitimized by the con- 
sensus of men, but not government itself, not authority. No one can 
compel obedience save Him who by His creative act has a right to 
our submission. 



124 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

There is no guarantee for right government but in the fact that 
all authority is from God. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and 
unto God what is God's, but Caesar will never receive what is his 
from the one who does not give to God what is His. It is the same 
with parental authority. It is the same wherever we find some in 
command and others subject to that command. It holds for all the 
relations of life. It holds in Church and in state, in the family and 
in the class room. 

Respect for others, in no matter what capacity they may be found, 
will never be manifested unless the principles of morality — of mo- 
rality which is undivorced from religion, of morality which springs 
from a recognition of divine authority — are upheld. That deference 
which is so necessary will be compulsory only, and might will usurp 
the place of right, and rulers will be tyrants and soldiers minions 
and the people slaves. Nobody has respect for another continuously 
if he respects not himself. Nobody can respect himself who is not 
true to the truth that is in him, especially to that ineffaceable truth 
which asserts the divinity of his origin and morally brings him to 
his knees before his Maker and fills his heart with the deference 
that is due to every rational creature coming from the hands of the 
Almighty and according to the degree in which circumstances con- 
trolled by an infinite Providence has legitimately placed him. This 
is so simple and so elementary, but when fundamental ideas are fast 
vanishing and come to so many as a new unheard something, then 
is it time to cry halt, and remind pedagogy of its paramount re- 
sponsibility. 



DEGENERACY— HEREDITY x 25 



XXV. DEGENERACY HEREDITY 

Heredity shares largely the attention of the world to-day. Some 
very striking occurrences have been brought to light of which a 
basis has been made for theories which still remain theories and 
will never be anything more. Theories are not to be scoffed at, and 
are to be neglected only when they parade as demonstrated con- 
clusions have been found useless in the fields of science. Theories 
degenerate and decay, as may be the lot of everything limited in 
this world of change. Degeneracy is a salient fact, and most of all 
in the moral order. There are those, and they are not a few, who 
leave the Father's home and never return. There are prodigals who, 
tired of the husks and the far-off country and the company that 
sinks them and debases them, go back to the fireside where they 
spent happy hours, the memory of which in some mysterious way 
always clings and not seldom draws away from the depths and 
stations on the heights. 

In no way does a man so impoverish himself in his gifts and 
qualities, so impoverish himself in his own eyes and in those of his 
fellows, as when he becomes unrecognizable as the one who set out 
on life's morning march, when his bosom was young, so full of 
promise and so hopeful of victory, when he is so far unrecognizable 
that his own will not know him, that his name is erased from all 
the family records and his portraits are all turned to the wall and 
no mention of him must ever be made in the paternal halls. If this 
is a deserved fate, then indeed must he be a degenerate. Yet let 
him be fallen as low as possible, there are many who would stoop 
to pick him up, out of the charity in their hearts, and because they 
know there are lower depths into which he might fall, and because 



126 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

they know not the day that they themselves might kennel with 
the poor lame dogs that have to be helped over stiles. God bless 
them for the thought and for the deed — not degenerates they, but 
princes in God's own household. 

It is not of evolutionary degeneracy that this chapter speaks, but of 
a worse kind, the degeneracy that makes will and mind, and, through 
both, body to deteriorate. Degeneracy is loss of birthright, the loss 
of all that has been given a man by right of natural descent ; it is a 
falling away from typal condition. It means one born noble becom- 
ing a serf, one born wealthy becoming a pauper, one born strong 
becoming a weakling, and, last of all, one born a man becoming a 
beast. It is against this last catastrophe that pedagogy must do 
battle. If it is unable to prevent degeneracy, or lessen or prevent 
its consequences, if it can not help toward repristination, then it has 
no place among the works of men ; then it itself, alas ! is degenerate. 

More censurable than degeneracy itself is a system that harbors 
the microbes of deterioration. It is the end of education to de- 
velop a man in all that he is, to strengthen body, mind and will. 
Truth is the only nourishment of the mind ; virtue — that is, the virile 
combat against all the advances of moral corruption — is the life of 
the will, and health of body is so easily, as it is so frequently, im- 
paired, by weakening the mind through error and falsehood and by 
not proclaiming to the will the law of liberty which keeps the whole 
man unspotted of the world. It is not a peculiar felicity, this being 
obligated, no matter what the subject introduced, to insist upon the 
most fundamental and simplest formulas of all education. It can 
not be helped. Every time the same disease is in process, so often 
must the same antitoxin be administered. What marvelous strides 
have been made in sanitation, and how grateful must suffering 
humanity be for all that has been done to make the body sound. 



DEGENERACY— HEREDITY 127 

The old-time adage was : A sound mind in a sound body. It calls 
for sound mind and sound body, not for sound body only or for 
sound mind only, but mind is first, and if sacrifice of either is in- 
evitable, then let body and not mind be immolated. A sound body 
can go far toward making a sound mind; witness all the triumphs 
in the field of surgery and medicine. The mind which is denied the 
truth is an infection and works resistlessly in making children 
and adults degenerates. That physical deterioration is in a very 
large measure due to heredity is admitted. This has given rise to 
theories, more or less orthodox, not merely from a religious but 
from every point of view. 

An attempt has been made to discover the laws of heredity and 
to give them fixity. Scientific certainty on this point will not be 
reached for many long ages. No ratiocination, no syllogism can be 
conclusive on this head until induction has traveled over a region 
of facts, practically infinite in extent. Nature is constant, it is true, 
but one solitary act of freakishness and she puzzles a whole world 
of honest searchers. Were some of the decisions pronounced by 
judges estimably competent on this subject to prevail, then the 
race might take lessons from the dreamy Orient and lie down and 
await without any fear of responsibility for inevitable consequences. 
It is the utter helplessness of the individual and the utter hopeless- 
ness implied that make some of its supposed laws such a cause of 
degeneracy. There is certainly at times consequences of heredity 
which make the life struggle constant and call upon the offspring 
for a heroicity that seems exorbitant. Whatever moral burden is 
laid by descent upon the child it is incontestable that somewhere or 
other on God's earth there is refreshment and easement for him, 
and that Providence will always see to it that he is not tried beyond 



128 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

his strength and that he has within himself a potency of will which 
religion may render indomitable. 

It is in questions like these that the barrenness of science is made 
apparent. There is a pedagogy which, only partly awake to the 
nature of man, adopts without examination sometimes all the con- 
clusions of incomplete research, and so deems useless any auxiliary 
that claims that only man's mind is teachable and that man's will can 
not be trained and must be left to fight with the resources with 
which parentage has equipped it. Such a notion is not only un- 
scientific, but is criminal as well and amenable for all the misery, 
weakness, turpitude and iniquity which in all ages have engaged the 
attention of Church and State and evoked the utterances of socialism 
and anarchy. 

If we are told that pedagogy has no time and no mission to re- 
dress these evils, then let the avowal be a public and an honest one, 
and let the schoolboy and collegian look elsewhere for relief from 
these intolerable conditions. Parents are answerable for the educa- 
tion to which they commit their children. Parents have in many 
places, the world over, the selection of the institutions to which 
they send their children. In the discharge of their obligations their 
duty is clear, and in the light of these principles their duty is of 
superlative value. The most superficial study of heredity will prove 
to fathers and to mothers what traits they bequeath to those who 
spring from them. From this knowledge will come to them the con- 
viction that in some degree they are responsible for many of the 
tendencies, and so should be animated with a determination to 
diminish the consequences and to make comparatively easy, if not 
pleasant, the warfare which those whom they have brought into 
the world must wage. If this warfare is not waged triumphantly, 
then with them heredity has left as a legacy degeneracy. 



TASTE 



129 



XXVI. TASTE 

Taste is the perception and enjoyment of what is choice. It in- 
cludes therefore, in its object eligibility, and in its possessor selec- 
tion. The two faculties which are its congeners are mind and will, 
and the more clearly they perceive and the more keenly they enjoy, 
the more perfect is in them the quality of taste. And what has 
pedagogy to do with taste? The question ought to be, What is 
there that pedagogy has not to do with taste? A child left to its 
own resources in this matter, a child whose taste has not been de- 
veloped or has been allowed to run wild, is at the mercy of every 
charlatan who has a theory to propound, or creed to establish, or a 
cause to uphold. 

Where taste has not been cultivated, education, no matter what its 
nature, is rudderless. It has no canon whereby to adjudicate in 
all matters which make appeal to sense or reason. Taste properly 
trained is as safe a guide in many things as instinct is in an animal. 
When of a man it is justifiable to state that he has no taste, or, what 
is nearly the same, that his taste is bad ; then such a one is marked, 
his judgments are deemed valueless and his efforts will be impotent 
in the whole region — how vast that region is ! — in the whole region 
where taste is umpire. It has been held as proverbially irrefutable 
that no dispute should be allowed in questions of taste : de gustibus 
non est disputandnm. 

Like all sayings which for ages pass current among men, thif 
maxim is susceptible of a twofold interpretation, both contradictory, 
one of which only can be true. Either taste is a monitor in all dis- 
cernings or it is not. When we say a monitor in all distinguishings 



130 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



we mean in all that belong to the province of taste. That it is a 
standard of genuineness seems patent. 

The masterpieces of all times, whether in literature or art, received 
their high position, and have maintained the supremacy even when 
some (and how few they are!) revolutionary minds rebelled against 
the supremacy and sometimes endeavored to argue them out of 
existence, them or their reputed or their accredited authors. The 
verdict was given long before there appeared in the world sys- 
tematized rules and clever analyses aiming at proving that where the 
popular taste had placed them, there they belonged. Before scien- 
tific adjustment there had been an enjoyment of their beauty and a 
perception of their proportions which gave them the seal of im- 
mortality which has been guaranteed by all generations of men 
since. There have been disputes, not about their general excellence, 
but relative to minor details. Disputes continue, but the primal 
taste has been rapturously sanctioned. In matters of highly matured 
taste, that is, in matters which enter into the vision of balanced 
minds, there has been and there will be variance. 

In this sense it must be granted that tastes may be compared, and 
tastes may be modified, and tastes may, in expression, be less or 
more enthusiastic or condemnatory, and hence taste may, both in its 
object as well as in itself, be a center of heated argument, and so 
there may be a dispute about taste. There is bad taste and good 
taste. There is a taste which lauds what is inferior and minimizes 
or execrates what is superior. There is a healthy and there is a 
diseased taste. This very well known fact makes compulsory de- 
bates on the subject of taste. There are tastes which are the out- 
come of habits, social, intellectual, moral and religious. This proves 
that there must at times be a war of taste against taste. There is a 
national taste which we may not like, because it likes us not, and 



TASTE 



r 3i 



so, though we respect it, we understand how easily and rationally 
its existence might foment very learned and very perplexing dis- 
cussions, not to say quarrels. The proverb is rather a slur on the 
race. It is tantamount to saying that it makes no difference what 
a man likes or dislikes, or that it is useless to argue against it be- 
cause reason and logic are very secondary, in a word, that nearly all 
of us are beyond the reach of being convinced, and so if we got our 
desert motley should be our wear. 

There most assuredly is a possibility where so much variety of 
worth exists of discerning the difference between values and of 
crowning what is royal, whether it be in literature or art. The 
definition that taste is the perception and enjoyment of what is 
choice admitted, it follows that taste is susceptible of many degrees, 
depending on the intelligence of the appreciator. From this flows, 
as a consequence, that the more keen a mind is rendered by training 
in the direction of discernment, the more perfect will taste be. Surely, 
one might say, surely in a subject like the present there can be no 
denying that the simplest form of pedagogy is advanced enough to 
do something toward taste-cultivation without being harassed with 
the repetition, likely to become nauseating, of the view that 
morality is essential. This protest is equivalent to a statement that 
morality or religion has nothing to do with taste, that one may be 
considered a safe critic of books, and of marbles, and of paintings, 
and of music, without summoning the principals of faith to one's 
assistance. 

All beauty that is genuine beauty must be examined by the judg- 
ment before it is enjoyed. Sudden rapture is not unusual, but 
along with it is connoted some reason for its springing into being. 
An act of the intelligence is always implied, though so swift are 
emotions that occasionally they render us powerless to discover im- 



132 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

mediately the why and the wherefore of their awakening. If there 
be no mental operation accompanying our transports, either they are 
mere sensations and will abide in that lower zone, or they are im- 
possible of analysis and so can not be a joy forever. In other 
words, there are principles which explain taste and furnish the 
reasons why taste is good and bad. There is a literature that is so 
execrable that he who reads is verily wallowing in a sensual stye 
while perusing. A taste for such productions grows upon what it 
feeds and becomes like unto its nourishment. It is a taste which 
soon converts its possessor into one maw, ever open for one kind of 
food and insatiable. It is a depraving taste. It assimilates its 
victim into itself and leaves him ruined in all his prosperity, blighted 
in all his faculties. 

"Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies, and all 
That shared its shelter perish in its fall." 

How is pedagogy going to eradicate or check a taste so pernicious 
as that? What principles will it invoke? If the pedagogy is of the 
earth, earthy, a pedagogy built upon materialism, what will this 
debauchee listen to in the way of corrective or inspiring maxims? 
Tell him whither he is hurrying he will answer scoffingly and 
logically: There is no hereafter, no God, no immortality, there is 
only the grave. How colorless such a system of education in the 
presence of man's majesty stripped of its regal garb and clinging 
to all that is sensual or ravenously as a wild beast. What is said of 
taste in the above relation may be said of taste in all its ramifica- 
tions, of the taste that enjoys infidelity, untruth, dishonesty, im- 
morality, domestic and social, for taste is called upon to assert 
itself regarding all these modifiers of human activity. 



COUNTRY 133 



XXVII. COUNTRY 

"Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's and truth's." 

So spake the great Cardinal of the eighth Henry when his for- 
tune had touched its nadir and had taught him, after much bitter- 
ness, the hard but salutary lesson that had he but served his God 
with half the zeal with which he served his king He would not, in 
his age, have left him at the mercy of his enemies. So full of incen- 
tives to high aspirations and high deeds is one's country that where 
pedagogy fails to develop the rich resources it contains for the 
up-bringing of the child, it is censurable to a degree that is not easy 
to put in words. 

There is something mysterious in the link which binds a man to 
his native land. It creates a love which it is not easy to diminish, 
and, in almost all cases, impossible to destroy. When it departs 
from the heart there is lost a strength which can not safely be 
dispensed with, and its absence lends to crimes amany, the crown- 
ing one of which, treason, seems to include all other delinquencies, 
and to call down on the guilty one the execration of all his fellows/ 
Parricide and treasc*" are moral enormities which cry to God and to 
man for the most summary vengeance. Love for country finds a 
chord in every heart, and a chord that is responsive not only in the 
man but almost in the very child. For that reason patriotism is an 
emotion which is awakened as easily as any other, and perhaps 
more quickly than any other. 

There is, however, a patriotism that is unto wisdom and a 



i 3 4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

patriotism that is tinged with folly exciting ridicule or indignation in 
sensible breasts. There is a patriotism which blinds and a pa- 
triotism which causes the scales to drop from vision, a patriotism 
which hurries on to excess, and a patriotism which is willing to 
compromise because it is enlightened and looks beyond the present 
moment. The French have coined a term which puts a bar sinister 
on patriotism of a certain kind, the term is chauvinism. It applies to 
one who is absurdly jealous of his country's honor or puffed up 
with an exaggerated sense of national glory, who is an extravagant 
glorifier of his country. Chauvin, one of Bonaparte's soldiers, ac- 
quired such notoriety because he was a type of men who work 
mischief by unreasoning, irascible and vainglorious patriotism. 

There is much of this brand of patriotism observable in all coun- 
tries. This is mob patriotism. There is a so-called love of coun- 
try which is more pernicious — a love of country which is excessive. 
It is blatant. It hounds on to measures which have not in them 
a germ of welfare for the common good. Probed, ft often re- 
veals not attachment to country but unseeing selfishness, it reveals 
ambition either for place or for wealth. It uses the country as a 
stepping-stone to encompass private ends. The device, when 
properly deciphered, which it carries on its banner is ego first and 
last and all the time. It is a concretion of the maxim so much 
used by so many who spend all their eloquence on reprobating it, 
tlie maxim that the end justifies the means. 

Those who lived through the two wars which disturbed the peace 
of the United States remember how unblushingly in nearly all 
ranks this execrable principle was the mainspring of what seemed 
heroic devotion to country. It is eminently the duty of those to 
whom the training of the young is committed to inculcate those 
truths without which patriotism will be merely emotion or listless, 



COUNTRY 135 

or awakened only when some emergency arises that compels uni- 
versal activity. 

The first training of the citizen of the future is begun where 
nature intended it to begin, that is, in the bosom of the family, and 
the longer the home education the better is it for the child and the 
State. What a society jungle the home is in so many instances ex- 
perience is there to demonstrate. A jungle in which human beings 
are reared to become beasts of prey, eager and ready to tear and to 
devour. How hard it is for the country to round them up, to de- 
prive them of their fangs and to place them where their fierce wild 
passions will not be tamed, but where, for a brief or a long period, 
they will be beyond the power of working the havoc to which they 
are incited by all the evil instincts of a nature which the home, 
such as it was, rendered ravenous, and which the school, such as it 
was, only developed into a more highly developed agency for evil 
of the most formidable and destructive description. 

Nor is this true only of homes where squalor and vice prevailed, 
but just as true of those who left palatial dwellings wherein no 
morality, or a morality constructed by a surface of respectability, 
was considered as a sufficient passport to the college or university, 
which was not a whit better, and thence to social life and social 
duties and the tremendous responsibilities of citizenship. What 
manner of patriotism will such an ancestry give birth to and such a 
credit nourish? 

We upbraid our immigration officers because they throw open 
the gates of this favored land to so many who are unfit, through ig- 
norance or through vice, to consort with its favored citizens. It is 
wise that these commissioners should be held, and strictly held, to 
their obligation. It is also wise, while we are looking to our borders, 
to look to the gates of home, and of school and of college and of 



136 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

university, and see to it that therefrom not merely undesirable, but 
absolutely dangerous, citizens do not emerge. Yet the duty of 
pedagogy is dazzlingly clear in its simplicity. There is no patriotism 
without peace, and a great teacher has written that peace is the 
tranquillity of order — an exhalation of that regularity that binds 
rulers to the ruled and all to one another in that sapient charity 
which respects feelings and rights and authority. 

The old Cardinal found a safe way out of his wreck to rise in, and, 
in the wisdom purchased at the price of all he cherished and toiled' 
for, he has mapped out the path of true patriotism : "Be just and 
fear not, let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy God's 
and truth's." "Love thyself last." "Corruption wins not more 
than honesty." No patriot, therefore, who does not prize his coun- 
try more than himself, God more than himself, truth more than him- 
self, is to be relied on. When these principles are acknowledged, 
then will the country prosper and grow great. 

A country is what its people are. If they are small, selfish, mean 
and debased, it is small, selfish, mean and debased. The more men 
contribute of their best selves to their country, the more glorious 
that country becomes and the more it will impart of all its greatness 
to every man, woman and child within its borders. Elementary all 
this, but elementary does not mean trifling or superficial; it means 
the flesh and blood and bone of all doctrine that is saving, of all 
systems that uplift. It means fundamental principles, and funda- 
mental principles are indispensable. Let it be remembered that 
the mind of man grasps these simplicities easily, but to see is not 
enough, but to be doers is what is needed. To do is the task, and 
needs strength, and to what fountain of strength, springing up into 
eternal life, does modern pedagogy point? 



RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE 137 



XXVIII. RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE 

The world forgets the lesson which it has learned and for 
which it has paid an enormous if not an exhorbitant price. The ex- 
perience of the ages has eloquently preached one truth, and that 
truth is that there is no explaining the universe without God. In 
the Book of Books the statements: "In the beginning God created 
heaven and earth, made us, and not we ourselves ;" "I am the Lord 
that made all things, that alone stretched out the heavens, that 
established the earth, and there is none with me," He stretched out 
the north over the empty space and hanged the earth upon nothing, 
all things were made by Him and without Him was made nothing 
that was made. 

These statements affirming so emphatically an existing and a 
creating Deity have been questioned most searchingly and by all 
manner of minds and men, and to-day the affirmation stands en- 
shrined in the niche which it belongs to and from which it will never 
be extended. Thinkers, honest and otherwise, have brought argu- 
ments against it, but none of them prevailed. One pseudo-phil- 
osopher, one scientist absolutely discredited to-day on account of the 
dishonesty of his presentments, when forced by actual demonstration 
to admit that spontaneous generation was, in the eyes of the latest 
science, a meaningless term and an impossible fact, said to his 
followers : " Gentlemen, if we abandon spontaneous generation we 
shall have to assert the existence of God, and you know how un- 
worthy of a philosopher such an admission would be." 

This supremacy of God, His presiding at all origins, is part of 
the lesson which the race forgets. Its complement is that every- 
thing that is owing all that it is to a maker must bow down in 



138 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

worship and obedience to that creator. The attitude of practical, 
if not theoretical, forgetfulness of God, has been prolific in deplorable 
consequences for the individual, the home, the State. The atheistic 
man, or family or State, is committed to most disastrous complica- 
tions. It is old apologetics, and it is not a little decried, to advance 
that the man who is regardless of God, that the home which ignores 
Him and the State which banishes Him, is on the incline which leads 
to disintegration. It was true before and after Noe, before and 
after Alexander, before and after Caesar, and the averment was 
made by the Apostle who knew Jew and Gentile, Roman and 
barbarian, because he knew human nature, "For the invisible 
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
. . . but professing themselves to be wise they became fools and 
changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made 
like to corruptible man." "Wherefore God also gave them up to 
uncleanness, gave them up unto vile affections, and receiving on 
themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." The 
list of abominations is a true catalogue of the woful consequences 
of atheism. 

What is the history of the family? It is the history of disorder, 
loathing, misery and wretchedness of the most heartrending descrip- 
tion, working terrible effects on children and on parents. The home 
becomes disintegrated and the members of the family carry the 
germs of their leprosy into society at large. In modern times the 
atheistic State has been in evidence and the story is always the same : 
decadence of all morality in high places and low. Such States gene- 
rate their own barbarians, who, springing up in their midst, de- 
vastate all that humanity prizes, and send out swarms to other and 
more prudent lands, swarms defiled by the infection of socialistic 
anarchv. 



RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE 



39 



This oblivion of God begets the destruction of all religion and 
of all the saving influence which flows from religion. The theme 
of all these chapters has been the necessity — the absolute necessity — 
of religion in pedagogy — a necessity so imperative that, were there 
no such thing as religion, he would be a peerless benefactor of his 
kind who succeeded in discovering, or rather in inventing, it. De- 
velop a child physically only, and you produce an animal, but yet 
not such a paragon as nature produces. Add to that achievement 
the highest mentality — if highest mentality can be without religion 
— and you evolve a rational animal with the emphasis on the animal 
element in the compound. Reason untouched by religion will find 
itself in constant warfare against the animal part, and in that 
struggle reason will be under the control of the senses, and then 
may the question be asked, What becomes of the dignity of man 
and of the manhood of the species ? 

We are told that men without any religion, that even men 
who have been apostles of irreligion, were men against whom the 
reproach of immorality could not be made. Who knows? Who 
is witness of a man's whole life? Who knows what it is necessary 
to know before such an eulogy be pronounced? Who knows all 
an individual's thoughts, words and deeds? It is for no man to 
judge, be it well understood, but there are facts which are so glar- 
ingly contradictory of the spotlessness which has been vaunted, that 
one hesitates and one fears before sending the probe in more deeply, 
lest revelations be made at which humanity would stand aghast. 
Unfortunately such revelations are written large and luminously in 
our own and other lands. 

A preacher of irreligion must be accused of folly or knavery. 
If of folly, then he is acquitted on the plea of temporary insanity 
or of permanent dementia. If he has any mind at all, he surely 



i 4 o CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

knows that when he poses as an emissary deputed by his own 
superior wisdom, he surely knows that he is removing from the 
paths of his fellows every check, every rein, every motive that can 
restrain the passions from careering at their own wild will, no mat- 
ter how much of what man holds dear is trampled under foot. 
Such an evangelist must be adjudged as guilty of the highest mis- 
demeanor against society, guilty of being a willing and responsible 
and exulting purveyor to the criminal desires and designs of his 
auditors. 

Let them all be perfect in all conceivable ways, it must ever be 
kept in mind that there may be such a thing as spiritual heredity. 
Their forefathers — the ancestors of those who advocate irreligion in 
these days — were Christians, and some of the Christianity is still 
helping to leaven the mass. Those irreproachable paragons of the 
days before Christ descended from a race of men to whom in the 
beginning the great revelation was made, and so consciously or un- 
consciously atavism was still energetic enough in some cases to 
steer them in or near roads of rectitude. 

Were a plebiscite gathered to-day the majority of ballots would 
be found on the side of God and of religion. Why, with such 
strong currents of atheism, such torrential streams of agnosticism, 
which is simply atheism "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," 
flowing up and down and hither and thither throughout the world, 
is not all that breathes of religion swept away into unfathomable 
depths? The reply seems to be that if man forgets God, He does 
not forget man, and besides it may be that these torrents are not as 
deep as they are furious, and that these tides, otherwise unconquer- 
able, are met with mighty and resistless undercurrents working in 
contrary ways. Perhaps, too, in the Sodoms and Gomorras of the 
twentieth century there are found ten just men. 



THE MATTER OF EDUCATION 14 1 



Part II. Christian Pedagogy Applied 



I. THE MATTER OF EDUCATION 

The field of pedagogy is as wide as the field of education. Its 
principles are intended to apply to everything which may be com- 
prised by the demand of full development in all branches of moral, 
intellectual and physical training. There is one body of principles 
which, though intended for begetting and sustaining the higher life 
of the soul, are of such a comprehensive nature that they must be 
consulted throughout the whole course of instruction, no matter 
how remotely it may seem to be connected with those essential 
truths. There are two agents even in moral, or strictly moral, 
teaching, which are inseparably united by nature. They are the mind 
and the will. The mind may be illuminated with the knowledge of 
all morality and so be ready in all emergencies to point out the 
path for deliberate action. This in itself is invaluable equipment, 
but more is needed. 

Men, from Adam down to the latest graduate in college lore, 
have known what to do, have known what they should do, have 
known how much depended on their doing it, have known that 
eternity hung upon their action, but they have refused submission 
and closed against themselves the gates of Paradise and shut them- 
selves out, and others also, from the enjoyment of all the splendors 
within. This makes it evident chat mind and will do not always 
harmonize, that mind is powerless against a will that is not strong 
enough, against a will that, if it is strong enough, prefers to select 
a road that mind imperiously condemns. A mind trained to know 



I 4 2 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

clearly what is right and what is wrong, is, beyond question, a 
treasure to be acquired and defended against all suggestions. Yet 
what is it without a will made unconquerable by a practise of acts 
so constant that habits are formed which render their possessor 
invulnerable, or endow the will with a resiliency, so active and so 
quick, that it springs back with a sudden bound to its native resolu- 
tion? "Cleave ye unto the Lord your God as you have done until 
this day. And then no man shall be able to resist you" (Josue 
xxiii, 8, 9). 

The Scripture uses strong language wherewith to express the 
force of habit, be it good or bad. "It is good for a man when he 
hath borne the yoke from his youth. He shall sit solitary and hold 
his peace, because he hath taken it up upon himself" (Sam. iii, 2j). 
"His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth. Despairing, 
they have given themselves up to lasciviousness, unto the working 
of uncleanness, unto covetousness" (Ep. iv, 19). Scripture is 
only using its own words to tell us what observation and experience 
have made clear to all. Habit is a strong character when it drives 
along the narrow path, but a relentlessly cruel tyrant when it whips 
its victims along the broad road of iniquity. 

The question naturally comes to our lips : Where is the teacher, 
where is the pedagogue who is able to form will as well as mind? 
Alas, he sits at no desk, he lectures from no chair, he preaches 
from no pulpit. A man's destiny is in his own hand and no man 
can force the will of another. There is a power, unseen as the 
winds of heaven are unseen, but palpable as those same airs are 
palpable, a power that can so light up the mien of vice that it be- 
comes hateful and all flee from it, that can so irradiate the face of 
virtue that the man will become enamored of its beauty and will 
give up all things in order to possess it. Need it be said that 



THE MATTER OF EDUCATION 



U3 



Christ is such a pedagogue, need it be said that the religion taught 
by this Church is so rich in resources that the reed shaken by the 
storm can be transformed into the forest monarch, that the weakest 
mortal may become strong with the strength of omnipotence and 
do deeds of integrity so marvelous as to bewilder humanity? 

No teacher can do this of himself — be he professor or priest. No 
mere professor has it in his power to accomplish it. The priest 
is by his vocation the one who brings first aid and last aid to those 
who are scorched by the blasts of the Babylonian furnace. Yet he, 
too, is powerless where the stricken ones refuse to be helped or, 
accepting help, do not follow conscientiously his prescriptions. 
There is not a wound of the soul for which the priest has not the 
medicaments, medicaments always efficacious to restore the debili- 
tated to vigor and to keep the vigorous strong. No matter how 
the soul-pestilence may rage, no matter what state of putrescence 
it may reduce its victims to, the healing power is always there for 
those who cry out in their distress. To say Sacraments, and all they 
mean, to the world at large, is to cast pearls before swine. To 
speak of the all-saving and all-satisfying Sacrifice is to invite 
ridicule and contempt. If the sick man be not trained from his 
very early childhood to know the dangers of his malady and to 
know to what physician he is to have recourse the priest will be 
of little avail, and his last resource, so often so remedial, will be his 
own prayer, the prayer of his people, and above all the adorable 
oblation wherein the divine Victim pleads so eloquently to the 
Father in behalf of the feeble and the erring. 

However, fail or fail not, the priest has one command, it is among 
the essentials of his priesthood, and that is to go and teach. Educa- 
tion nowadays makes an exhausting and exhaustive demand on the 
efforts of society at large. It calls for an intimacy with the most 



144 



CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



intricate problems, for knowledge of the heavens and of the earth, 
and of the fulness thereof. There is no height too steep for its 
climbing, no depth too deep for its fathoming, no areas too broad 
for its exploring. This is as it should be, but it is not enough. 
There will be no successful climbing, no searching fathoming, no 
profitable exploring if the North Star is not kept steadily in view, 
if the tremblings of the needle are not vigilantly watched. The 
North Star and the needle of all pedagogy is one little book: the 
Catechism; one little science: Catechetics. This seems to be an 
unjustifiable claim, yet, if these pages have tried to do anything, 
they have tried to help make clear that no oourt can lawfully throw 
this claim out, or refuse it consideration. 

Religious instruction should preside at the beginning, should 
domineer the progress and crown the completion of all pedagogy. 
Its matter is so comprehensive and so simple. Beginning with 
the most intelligible statements it advances to the highest virtues. 
It calls to its assistance all the experience of the world since the 
beginning. The Bible — the Old and New Testaments — the history 
of the ancient world and the story of Christ and His Redemption, 
of the kingdom of God and of the kingdoms of the world, with their 
vicissitudes, these chronicles are its handmaidens. It is neither 
inspired nor sterile, this study. The thorough Catechist, whether in 
the room where prayers alone are rehearsed, or in the lecture room 
where questions affecting humanity and as broad as time and eter- 
nity are discussed, must necessarily be a man whose place among 
the learned is a high, and very high indeed. Who more eloquent, 
who more at home in the palpitating problems of their day than the 
fathers and doctors of the Church ? Yet their labors were Catecheti- 
cal labors and their chiefest triumphs were in the sphere of 
Catechetics. 



THE CHILDREN 145 



II. THE CHILDREN 

The children are everywhere, some of them like flowers. God 
bless them ! Some of them like weeds. God pity them ! The fact 
that they are everywhere, in every clime, under every sky, in every 
environment, calls for both exultation and lamentation. They are 
subject to all kinds of pressure. Some are loved and cared for. 
Some are neglected. Some are well nourished, others are starving. 
Starvation is working havoc and death among them, even in cities 
where there is untold wealth and where what the lavish throw 
away in the satiety of their abundance would spread banquets for 
the hungry and furnish ample raiment to the naked. The child 
is so helpless and, therefore, calls for vigilant helpfulness ; the child 
is so rich in promises and hence calls for intelligent development, 
the child is so important, and hence where neglect is criminal who- 
soever is privy to the iniquity can not have retribution sufficient 
meted out to him on this round of earth of ours. 

Because of all this the Master has said in one of his intensest 
moments : "He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that 
believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be 
hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth 
of the sea." "See that you despise not one of these little ones, 
for I say to you that their angels in heaven always see the face of 
my Father who is in heaven." The Lord emphasized two mandates 
in behalf of children : they must not be despised, they must not be 
scandalized. No matter how man forgets them they are not for- 
gotten of the angels nor of the Father. Whoso infringes either or 
both injunctions has the angels and the Father and the judgment 
to come to answer. 



146 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

Wonderfully championed are the children. Their guardians and 
protection are the angels and the Father. What a beautiful and 
what an inspiring gradation: the children, the angels, the Father! 
There is joy over one sinner doing penance. If so, what jubilation 
over one man, one woman leaping into the arena of the child-world 
and doing battle for their rights and for their privileges! How 
noble the office of pedagogue and how grand the vocation of the 
men, the whole world over, who have spurned all bribes, every in- 
ducement, to devote in chastity and poverty and obedience all their 
energies in behalf of the child! Yea, and, outside of the cloister, 
what eulogy is high enough for those whose endeavors and the work 
of whose existence are the patient, wearing, toilsome and some- 
times so disheartening task of informing the tender mind of the 
young? 

Nothing in the way of effort reacts so potently as teaching. What 
the teacher has the child wins, and again, all that the child gains 
is given back with usury to the teacher. Verily the reward is a 
hundredfold and more, rendered in so many unseen ways in this 
life. What blessings come down that wonderful ladder, the steps 
of which are the children and the angels, and, bending over all, the 
Father ! When we consider we really cease to wonder. The child 
means so much to the world, to the angels, to the Father. 

"Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 

Ere the sorrows come with years? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, 
And that can not stop their tears." 

The call of the children is booming like the wailing of ocean 
through all the stretches of space. The call is a moaning, because 
they have none to lead them to the heights whence they come and 



THE CHILDREN 147 

where they belong, because they are stripped of their heaven-given 
right, because their minds are caged when they should be free, be- 
cause their souls are starved and stunted when they should be 
seated at the tables on which are spread the banquets for the sons 
and for the daughters of the King. 

Who are the torturers, aye, and the murderers? Sometimes 
the parents. Sometimes? Who can say how often? When 
the son swore, Burton tells us, Diogenes struck the father. He 
knew, as we all know, that not the son, but the father was an- 
swerable. Sometimes, and again how often, the teachers are to 
blame! It is hard to undo the harm which fathers and mothers 
work, but if the corrective can be administered, who may depre- 
cate the mission of the teacher? The Saviour was so solicitous 
about the child because before His mind, clearly manifested, was 
the significance of the child. Children are the material out of 
which the Creator purposed that His bones and His cities and His 
countries, and His peoples and His nations and His world should 
be built. 

What a world it would be if so much childhood were not 
neglected, were not dwarfed, were not rendered unfit for the up- 
rearing of the palace which the Maker intended should be so mag- 
nificent! The children are the citizens of the future, those into 
whose hands will be committed all the interests of humanity, those 
in whose power it will be to enshrine or deface the image of God 
in morals, in laws, in everything that contributes to progress or 
retrogression. The simple child that lightly draws its breath is 
all that and more to God. That simple child is the realization of 
all the sublime purposes of creation, that simple child is an unit 
of order or of disorder, of law or of anarchy, of happiness or 
misery, of failure or of success for himself and for all the world. 



148 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

Wo! unto him that interferes in any way, directly or indirectly, 
with the child who represents God's views on the race ! The child 
meant all that to the angels. For them he is a hoped-for member 
of their heavenly circle. They are expectant of a day in which he 
will join their ranks and be proclaimed a citizen among the celestial 
choirs. Wo! because of the angels, wo to him who by neglect or 
wilful speech or action renders hopeless this expectation of the 
angels. For all this must the children be cultivated as no flower 
or rare growth is cultivated and guarded as no rare gem is guarded. 
The whole world is, and should be, laid under tribute for them. 
For them should be procured the most costly institutions and schools, 
the most skilful, the most competent trainers. For them must 
legislations construct laws that have no loophole through which any 
right or privilege of theirs might fall and be lost, or in any way 
diminished. For them must systems be devised full of attraction, 
full of light for the mind and warmth for the heart. From their 
privileged circle must be banished all error, all dishonesty, all in- 
sincerity. Into their atmosphere only what is purest must pene- 
trate, the purest among men and women and what is most incor- 
ruptible in doctrine. 

The pedagogy which cannot guarantee all this for the child must 
be whipped out of the land and the pedagogue who would break 
through this guarantee for any evil minded cupidity of his own, 
or for his own vanity, or for any low motive, should be stripped of 
his scepter and forever banished to some ultimate Siberia. 

This is the Christian idea of teachership. This is pedagogy which 
becomes baptized in the healing waters of religion, has in it the 
germs of moral, intellectual and physical culture, without which the 
children may never see the face of the Father. 



METHOD 1 49 



III. METHOD 



Method, in general, is any orderly way of doing a thing. The 
more orderly the way, and the more successful its influence upon 
a projected achievement, the more perfect the method is. In 
pedagogy method is a systematized process for imparting instruc- 
tion, and in that particular branch of Christian pedagogy called 
catechetics method is the plan to be followed in teaching Cate* 
chism. This supposes in the teacher a regulated mind. In the 
child that regularity of thought in the teacher is to be reflected. It is 
a transit of the order in the thinking of the teacher to the thinking 
of the child. The more perfect the communication to the child, 
the more efficient is the work of the master. How much method 
insures to profitable teaching is self-evident. How much its absence 
paralyzes all mental effort is equally palpable. 

Logic affirms that method is a system of right procedure for the 
attainment of truth. If we modify the definition and state that 
method is a system of right procedure, for the attainment and for 
the imparting of truth, we have a definition which covers all that 
is essential in its relation to all pedagogy, and especially cate- 
chetics. Of how much moment in all teaching method is, there can 
be no doubt. 

Method has been the subject of much discussion, and naturally. 
There are general laws which guide it and there are no others. 
When a method combines clearness and interest we have stated 
the common measure by which it is limited. In every other feature 
it is necessarily at the mercy of the one who uses it, and in his 
hands, while it retains the main features, it is undergoing many 



150 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

accidental variations. It is for this reason that teachers can not 
be made by machinery, or, what is the same thing, by procrustean 
devices of training. No matter how much a teacher may be put 
under pressure in normal or other schools, his limitations will 
survive, and it is precisely on this account there are practically as 
many systems as there are teachers. This is not a fact which 
should dishearten. 

This retention of one's individuality is a trait rather to be wel- 
comed than censured. The teacher who becomes so identified with 
his method that he is owned by his method will certainly prove 
either a useless or a dangerous factor in education. Such an one 
is utterly colorless. He is an anemic. He is lifeless. In the 
classroom he is a forbidding specter. He spreads gloom and dis- 
satisfaction. He moves in monotonous grooves. He is no more 
than sounding brass. He is a phonograph, and the children who 
are compelled to pass hours under his arctic and tenebrific sway, 
are mere inert masses, whose whole activity reduces itself to blind 
groping and unreasoning instinct. 

There is certainly such a thing as being too methodical. There 
is no matter which is not in some little measure resilient. This is 
true of the grossest matter. Hence we look for elasticity in every 
character, and when we do not find it there where it ought to be 
discoverable, in one to whom is committed the education of the 
young, then is a very evident and important duty to be discharged, 
and that is the obligation of either withdrawing such a monstrosity 
from our children or our children from the care of such an over- 
whelming phenomenon. 

Books as well as professors express and elucidate and uphold 
systems. Text books are necessarily pledged to this. A text 
book has in it germs of all possible inoculation. The germs may 



METHOD i 5 i 

be neutralized when treated by a master who has not become the 
inanimate serf of a system. But the teacher alluded to above, plus 
a text book, results in a combination as deadly as an infernal 
machine. Of the making of text books there is no end. To-day 
everywhere text books are written, and text books that have in 
them nothing of value, save what tradition has saved from the 
universal wreckage. 

Just as there are two kinds of speakers, there are two kinds of 
text-book writing. There are speakers who have something to 
say and there are speakers who have to say something. There are 
text book authors who have something to print and authors who 
have to print something. Comparing the damage inflicted on the 
young it is not unsafe to say that the book men are more harmful 
than the speakers. There are methods which have stood the test 
of the centuries, methods which have formed great and very great 
men and women. How many are in use to-day ? This is admittedly 
a boomerang. However, the return blow will be accepted in a spirit 
of evangelical resignation. 

All or the little that has been said of method is especially applic- 
able to catechetics. Of Catechism and of books on catechetical 
instruction there is no end. The fact that religious instruction 
begins earlier than any other compels more and keener discernment 
in the matter of text books and commentators. Many valuable 
hints are given, but is it unjustifiable to ask where in our tongue 
is the perfect Catechism? An eclectic compilation might produce 
one. The method of catechetics suggests itself. All suggestions 
are to be weighed and some day or other the genius will arise who 
will give to the world the masterpiece we are so anxiously awaiting. 

If clearness and interest are the indispensable requisites in all 
communication of any kind of knowledge, these qualities are more 



152 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

cogently demanded in catechetical pedagogy. Limpidity and brevity 
go far toward the make-up of clearness- Simplicity of language 
is essential. These are not every teacher's inborn gifts. Labor 
sometimes, but not always, conquers every difficulty. There is 
a tendency, in elemental instruction, to fancy — it is fancy only and 
nothing more — that preparation is not necessary, or, if necessary, 
that it need only be very perfunctory. This opinion condemns itself 
and its advocates. One half hour of Catechism calls for more than 
half an hour's preparation. The rule is axiomatic, that the more 
one prepares the more successful will the performance of one's 
allotted task be. The teacher of a Catechism class should know his 
lesson as perfectly as he calls for the child to know it. Add to this 
a laboriously prepared explanation, a collection of apt but easily 
intelligible illustrations from things familiar to the pupils, and it 
will be immediately recognized that a lesson, no matter how short, 
in religious doctrine, is work, the necessity of which can not be 
dismissed with a shrug. One who appreciates the importance and 
the difficulties of this duty will be a man of prayer as well as a man 
of industry. The whole after life of the child depends upon the 
method according to which it has been trained in Catechism. If the 
method is one that wearies and mystifies, then it is to be feared that 
in the days to come everything connected with religion, all its prac- 
tises, will wear a somber and forbidding aspect. 



PERSONALITIES AND CONDITIONS 



*53 



IV. PERSONALITIES AND CONDITIONS 

The race has not always been to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong. Whether in animal or in man, there have been, in contests, 
so many surprises that the wise refuse to prophesy until the indi- 
vidual note has been clearly discerned. This individual charac- 
teristic is what is understood as personality. It is something which 
must never be left out of the reckoning. It is personality which has 
domineered all history. It is personality which conquers to-day. 
Everybody has a personality of some sort, but in many cases the 
personality is so weak that it plays a very insignificant role. In an 
institution, as well as in a government, or, for the matter of that, 
in any circle, there is always a leader, just as in the human body 
there is always a head. 

There has been and there will always be an outcry against 
supremacy of this or of any kind. Yet the outcry will ever be a 
vain one. In politics there will always be a "boss," and the power 
exercised will be always one-man power. In machinery, no matter 
how complicated, one little button or one small lever lets loose all 
the energy. All the struggles of humanity have been struggles of 
personalities. This fact, which lies on the surface of all experience, 
and which is visible to the dimmest sight, is to be taken into con- 
sideration in all education. It is suggestive to every educator, 
both for his own sake and for the sake of those whom he educates. 
Without a doubt pedagogy is a science which makes for the develop- 
ment of personality. Personality and character are almost inter- 
changeable terms, but, like all terms, they are not synonymous. 



154 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

One supposes the other, but one is not the other. Character under- 
lies personality and personality is the expression of character. Per- 
sonality is character in evidence, character in action, character as 
it impresses and controls others. 

In a school, or a Sunday-school, it is eminently desirable that the 
chief thereof possess the strongest personality. This does not mean 
that his aids should have no or little personality. On the contrary, 
if there be a profession which by its nature calls for the forceful 
characteristics which are being discussed, it is the profession of 
teaching. The strongest individuality in the classroom must be 
that of the teacher. His must be an individuality of compelling 
power. His very presence should command respect and attention 
and submission. One difference between character and personality 
is here to be noted. That difference is that character rules by 
action and personality sways by mere presence- That individuality, 
in the particular sense in which it is being viewed, can not be over- 
looked in the child. There is no education, it is known, without 
personality. As education means the bringing into growth first, 
and afterward into action, all the powers of the child, the person- 
ality of the child will, in the end, depend upon its education. 

Here is the crowning mission of education — to make, to expand 
all the faculties of the physical, of the mental, and of the moral 
nature of the child, to expand them in the fullest, and when ex- 
panded, to coordinate and subordinate them into a compacted 
unity, from which a harmony is breathed which praises God, 
delights the angels, and charms and uplifts men. Thus personality 
is created, the very existence of which blesses and glorifies human 
nature. 

Multiply these elevating agencies and who will refuse to say all 
hail to the educator? Who will be unwilling to admit that the 



PERSONALITIES AND CONDITIONS 155 

safety of all that is best under the stars is really in the hands of 
the men and women teachers in the land? In some dim way this 
has been understood by the race and from the beginning. There 
is an old apologue which tells that as Jove was visiting the Shades 
one day, he determined to inquire what vocations these bodiless 
ones had followed when among the living. There were philoso- 
phers, and generals, and rulers, and orators, and as each detailed the 
work done for his fellows while on earth, the ruler of Olympus 
expressed his approval and lauded them for their efforts and prom- 
ised reward. He noticed that on the outermost edge of the circle 
surrounding him there was one who shrank from all notice. He 
called and asked him what his task had been in other days. After 
much delay the answer came that his life had not amounted to much, 
that nobody cared for him, that no monuments had been reared to 
him, that he had fought no battles, won no victories. "But what 
were you ?" insisted Jupiter. The reply was, "Only a schoolmaster, 
majesty, and these are all my boys." His praise was the highest 
and his reward the richest. 

But the world assents to this only when the school, through the 
agency of the teachers, gives to the family and the state and the 
church young men and young women endowed with that charm 
that is so attractive, when heart and sense and mind form a person- 
ality strong and bright and fragrant. How far is it within the power 
of education to so influence individuals as to transform them into 
these activities so beneficent that humanity can not afford to miss 
them? This brings up the question, is personality congenital, or 
can it be created? That character is germinally in everyone com- 
ing into the world is true, but it is equally true that germs may be 
brought into an atmosphere propitious or otherwise, wholesome 
or not. Many lives have been turned awry and many lives have 



156 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

sprung up into beauty and splendor under the touch of good or of 
evil environment. 

The most potent of all environments is that of the school. So 
it lies with the school teacher to mold and fashion individuality. 
We are not forgetting the home, for home is a school and father 
and mother are the school teachers. Speaking in general, the Sun- 
day school is the first school the Christian child enters. This 
school for a time antedates all other schools, and then it enters 
into competition with all instructors. It competes with the family 
and with the public school. It is no weak rival of the others. It 
is often the successful rival, and well is it when it is so. Without it 
the home is incomplete. Without it the public school is dangerous. 
It often becomes the only home the city waif has ; that is, the only 
comforting spot that has any warmth and cheer for him. Eulogy 
is dumb in the face of all the Sunday school is called upon to do, 
and in the face of all it can do. It has the wherewithal to shape 
personality. Its touch can be so delicate, and the lives it traces, if 
the fingers move deftly, can be so beautiful. 

What a mirror it is then for the child and how full of winning- 
ness it is as it holds up to him all the sweet loveliness of the Child 
Christ. It calls upon the child to kneel down in prayer to God 
and the saints. Thus the child comes in contact with things 
spiritual, and while acknowledging the supremacy of the Almighty, 
finds the emotions of its young breast tamed. Modesty and submis- 
sion and unselfishness, yea and humility, enter and take possession, 
and the foundations of a great moral character are laid, from which 
will emerge a personality strong to rebuke, by its presence alone, 
all that is wild and unlawful in others. Personality may be created 
in the sense that all the units which combine to engender it may 
cohere and expand under laws which regulate and fortify. The 



PERSONALITIES AND CONDITIONS 157 

Creator has furnished to each the material of this personality 
which, after all, is all the man is during life. Christian pedagogy, 
in the field of Catechetics, has the call and the power to fashion 
that material. 



158 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



V. TEMPERAMENT 

Temperament is a very old term, as old in fact as the condition 
it expresses, and has been used since anything like systematic phil- 
osophy has been introduced into education. It is wonderful to 
relate that its meaning to-day is precisely the same that it was in 
the days of the scholastics or in the remoter days of Aristotle. 
This is wonderful when it is remembered that the most puzzling 
obstacle to be found in the study of logic or metaphysics to-day is 
the interpolation of new words conveying old ideas and the meta- 
morphosing of old words to signify supposedly new concepts. It 
may be that novelty of terminology has added something to knowl- 
edge. It may be, too, that new investigation and the addition of 
new facts which give birth to new ideas compel terms which would 
make "Quintilian stare and gape." Yet in this, as in most other 
things, it is not unwise to be not the first by whom the new are 
tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 

Novelty is scarcely ever commendable. There is nothing new 
under the sun, and where an old term will do it is not dangerous to 
retain it. Besides, it would not require a wizard to compute how 
many really hitherto undiscovered ideas have been given to hu- 
manity, but a lightning calculator would find it an impossible task to 
sum up the number of absolutely unnecessary words which have 
been foisted upon all the languages of the world. Unnecessary? 
Rather they are harmful words. Such expressions are nocuous, 
because they are useless and because they mislead and they over- 
load. It would be no calumny to assert that, in not a few instances, 



TEMPERAMENT i 59 

in the minds of their framers, it was intended that they should 
be so. In those frequent "isms" of the age the very striking fea- 
ture is the numberless terms that are either meaningless or designed 
equivocally. There has been manifested since the Renaissance a 
contempt for the scholarship of the Middle Ages, and that unrivaled 
development of human genius which goes by the name of scholastic 
philosophy has become a synonym for the out of date, the naive, 
the scientifically worthless. Yet there has not since been invented 
a terminology more concise, more adequate, more clear than the 
terminology that characterizes so many of the productions of those 
ages. The words they used were words that were fit because they 
thought clearly, and if their influence is potent to-day it is for the 
reason that they wrote and spoke as clearly and as profoundly as 
they thought. 

Neo-scholasticism will not detach itself from old scholasticism 
because the latter has the breath of life in it and breathes in the new. 
Not so with neo-Kantism, nor so with neo-agnosticism. Kantism 
and agnosticism have too many germs of decay — departures from 
old established truths — so that neo-Kantism will have nothing of 
Kant in it, and neo-agnosticism will possess nothing of its disciples 
because the theories they elaborated can not withstand the tritura- 
tion of time nor live in the height of a truly advanced learning. 

In those days which can never die, in the days of St. Thomas and 
St. Bonaventure, there was a pedagogy which in essentials has not 
been surpassed — a pedagogy unhesitatingly Christian. They spent 
themselves in showing scientifically that religion was an act of 
worship which the origin and nature and destiny of man made 
obligatory for every rational creature. In terms of reason they 
announced and defended and proved the immortality of the human 
soul, that He who made that undying spirit made it for a last, in- 



160 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

finite, perfectly beatifying possession: Himself. They upheld that 
to win Him was to win everything; that to lose Him was to lose 
everything; that He was the norm of morality, and that His ex- 
istence was the only basis of all moral obligation, and that the 
pedagogy which insinuated anything else was a malediction for man. 
Man they studied in all that make him up essentially, and they have 
left a residuum of conclusions about man physically and spiritually 
which is an indispensable as well as a rich legacy to modern science. 
They knew what a part the animal constituent of man played in the 
great warfare of existence. Ascetics assumed their data about the 
individual, and because they understood they became saints them- 
selves and made holy men and holy women of others. As teachers 
and directors they watched their pupils and disciples closely. They 
made large allowances for everything and so their guidance was 
wise and salutary. They formed character, and they neglected noth- 
ing. It is not astonishing, therefore, that temperament engaged a 
considerable share of attention. It were well that the catechist gave 
heed to that particular feature in the boy or girl. Temperament, 
we may say, is the part which the body and its whole organism 
enacts in all human activity. 

It will be granted that "man's character is partly inherited, partly 
acquired — due, in part, to nature, in part to nurture!' What man 
inherits is what is bequeathed to his body by his parents. Strictly 
speaking, this is all that heredity may lay claim to. In a general 
way, since body and soul interact, whatever modifications of mind 
or will are brought about by this interrelation is so much a result 
of heredity. This must, however, be persistently maintained that 
the will is always its own master and so can struggle successfully 
against all the propensities which through the body may be trace- 
able to ancestry. The inherited element of character in so far as it 



TEMPERAMENT 161 

is determined by his bodily constitution was called his temperament, 
and to-day the four great types of temperament recognized by 
Aristotle and Galen are still recognized not physiologically, but as 
a classification which is rather helpful than disturbing. 

Any Catechist looking around his class with an observing eye will 
note the choleric temperament which makes its possessor energetic, 
prompt, passionate, ambitious, proud and angry. He will dis- 
tinguish the sanguine temperament which is revealed in the light- 
hearted, imaginative, vivacious, brilliant, enthusiastic child. There is 
the child who is slow, somnolent, imperturbable, tranquil. Galen 
would diagnose his temperament as phlegmatic. There is, lastly, 
the boy or the girl who mopes, broods, is prone to sadness, envy, 
suspicion, who is introspective, obstinate and persevering in dislike ; 
this is the melancholy temperament. The teacher who means to do 
for a child all that it is in his power to do will not neglect its 
temperament. 

This closeness of study, in the matter of the disposition of his 
children, will suggest many ways and means of dealing with them. 
No one is a successful student of others who has not studied him- 
self and especially his own temperament. Know thyself is a maxim 
the following of which prevents a teacher from falling into the 
worst error in the management of a child, the error of misunder- 
standing the child. This is an ignorance which is productive of 
much harm and much wrong. Everyone knows how fruitful in evil 
it is in the home. Everyone perhaps is, or has been, and certainly 
will be, the victim of this most lamentable mistake. 

Christ attracted children because He knew them, and because He 
knew them He loved them. If the teacher only knew all, how much 
injustice would remain undone and how seldom the schoolroom 
would be the theater of scenes of cruelty, unnecessary severity of 



i6 2 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

injustice and of the thousand and one unkind dagger words that 
would break older hearts than those of the children, who forget 
much, thank God, but who always remember partiality and in- 
justice. When we have tamed our own temperament to discretion, 
we will begin to learn how to control and guide the temperaments of 
others. This is real and sound pedagogy, for it humanizes and it 
uplifts. 



MEMORIZING 163 



VI. MEMORIZING 

"Language," says Coleridge, "is the armory of the human mind 
and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its 
future conquests." He means language which blends sound and 
sense — otherwise language is only stringing together of idle words 
in execration of which Shakespeare exclaims : "Out, idle words, serv- 
ants to shallow fools." When we speak of language, therefore, in 
the only sense in which it is language, in the sense that it tongues 
ideas, it is not hard to admit that language is a meaningless jumble, 
and to be discarded when it abets either shallowness or folly. Lan- 
guage is among our rarest possessions, not only because it puts us in 
communication with others and others with us, but also because it is 
the casket in which are enshrined all those high spiritual thoughts 
which "shine like jewels on the outstretched forefinger of all time." 
Words which are the elements out of which language is compacted, 
even single words, hold boundless stores of moral and historic truth, 
of passion and imagination from which lessons of infinite worth may 
be derived. A man regrets many things in life, and among them 
are the beautiful visions of supreme culture which held him captive 
as he read, and awakened in him immortal longings — all of which 
are his no more, because they have dropped from his memory, and 
vain are all his efforts to recall them. He bewails the inactivity of 
his memory. There are other men, and their memory is ever alive 
and wields an imperial scepter over all the mental activity of the 
past, and can summon to the sessions of silent thought the whisper- 
ings of the great men who in remote and recent days spoke words of 
inspiration, words that ready remembrance brings back, words 



i6 4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

that bring with them fragrance and melody. These men thank God 
for the blessing which is theirs. 

Though phenomenal memory be innate, any memory, however in- 
sufficient it be at first, may be cultivated, from a seedling spring 
up into a sturdy growth. The doors of memory are not to be 
thrown open to all who knock. There are scenes possible in ex- 
perience upon which memory must drop an impenetrable curtain — 
scenes which should never have been permitted to enter that sanctu- 
ary. It is the same for words and for thoughts. Memory should 
be intolerantly aristocratic. The guardians of the memory are the 
senses and the mind and the will, and as they watch themselves 
so will they protect memory. This faculty, which can not be neg- 
lected, except criminally, calls for attention from almost the earliest 
years, and by no teacher should it be more watchfully guided than 
by the master of the catechism class. Catechism should be lodged 
securely in the memory of the boy or girl. This follows from the 
importance of the matter. One thing it is of the greatest moment 
never to forget, and that one thing is any and every lesson of the 
Sunday school or the catechism class. Oblivion may cloud over 
all else, but not what religious instruction has taught. Everything 
else is unnecessary, but the truths of the faith are at all times neces- 
sary. These and their fruits are the one thing necessary. This is a 
truism of the most unmistakable type; yes, but in view of much 
that is seen happening around us, it is a truism that is fading from 
much human remembrance, and woful is the havoc its disappearance 
creates. 

Fuller has said of memory that it is "like a purse, if it be over- 
full that it can not shut, all will drop out of it. Take heed of a 
gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of 
the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof." Rarely 



MEMORIZING 165 

have minds been found over-full of catechism, and rarely have our 
children needed to be warned against a gluttonous curiosity. If 
ever such children are seated on the forms of the catechism room, 
it would be in no wise dangerous to stimulate that gluttonous 
curiosity and to hold these phenomena up for the admiration and 
emulation of the fact. The first and best effort of the teacher must 
relate to the memory work of those with whose instruction he is 
charged. To memorize means to have and to hold. This is its 
chief function. Memorizing is photographing, and every feature 
and every line of every feature must be traceable in the reproduc- 
tion. Children have not memorized their lines when they hesitate, 
deliberate, stammer or mutilate. 

There should be two marks only for memory. The marks should 
be either the highest or zero. It is impossible where this faculty is 
concerned to be too precise or particular. The perfection demanded 
here is, however, incomplete unless it mounts a step further. 
A faultless memory lesson supposes letter perfect and sense perfect. 
These two degrees may exist separately. The perfection of the 
letter, however, may be without the perfection of the sense, but 
not vice versa. The two should fit each other as hand fits glove. 
Sense perfection is not here what is meant by the general mean- 
ing, but is the meaning of each word, and the meaning of each 
clause, and the meaning of each phrase as they are in the author 
and as they fall from the lips of the one who recites. It is with this 
last proviso in mind that were made the above remarks on the advan- 
tage of the study of words. Single words are so full of meaning, 
and when etymologically studied they suggest so much that is worth 
while knowing, and besides when a word is known it seems to ac- 
quire an inalienable right and forever to a reserved seat in the 
memory. 



166 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The first memory lesson in Catechetics is learning the prayers 
by heart. As a word study, what is signified by the expression 
"learning by heart" ? For the one idea we have these three expres- 
sions: "Learning by heart/' "learning by rote," "memorizing." 
"Learning by rote" we have to discard altogether from our catecheti- 
cal vocabulary, because to learn by rote is to learn mechanically, is to 
learn as a parrot learns, is to learn without any adverting to the 
sense. Such a memory task is suited only to public auctioneers, the 
guides in the London Tower, or in most if not in all of our summer 
resorts where special attractions are elucidated for the benefit of 
the rustic gazers. But "to learn a lesson by heart," the question is 
asked in all honesty, what meaning has it? Does it insinuate that 
heart and memory are identical, or that the most successful way of 
grading the memory to profitable exercise is the one all of us have 
witnessed, the audible one of breast or heart-scrutiny, or that 
memory must pluck the very heart out of the lesson, or that mem- 
ory will never fail when it joins with heart in its efforts, will 
never fail when the child sits down to its task with a heart love for it. 
Love may do much, and in the end will do all, but at the very be- 
ginning heart means eyes and ears and stomach, which throws much 
of the labor on the catechist. The prayers are the earliest lesson. 
They are not always learned at home, nor at parochial schools, nor 
in college classes. 

In this matter the teacher must make assurance doubly sure. 
Each word must have its beginning, middle and end. As far as 
possible each word must be understood. Anything learned as a 
memory lesson must first be understood. The prayers should be 
learned so well that they will never be forgotten. How few if any 
forget their alphabet? The prayers are the alphabet of religion. 
Poor children ! Who knows what fate is ahead of them ? They will 



MEMORIZING ^7 

wander here and there and everywhere. They will forget home 
and Church, but it must be seen to that they will know and will not 
forget their "Our Father," "Hail Mary," and the "Act of Con- 
trition." 



168 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY. 



VII. DANGERS 

In the eleventh chapter of St. Luke, Christ speaking of the king- 
dom of God says, "When a strong man armed keepeth his court, 
those things are in peace which he possesseth. But if a stronger 
than he come upon him and overcome him, he will take away all his 
armor wherein he trusted and will distribute his spoils." The 
allusion here is to the never-ending struggle that began with Chris- 
tianity, is still on, and will continue until the end of time. Because 
the unclean spirits will ever wage this terrible war. Christ, who has 
not left his servants orphans, will be with them until the end of time, 
and His victory over the gates of hell is sure and will be the finality 
of all things. In the conflict, though ultimate triumph is as in- 
evitable as the determination of Christ is inflexible, yet because the 
battle is being fought day and night, century in and century out, 
there is an element of danger, and, therefore, of partial or seeming 
defeat which it were unwise to overlook or underestimate. 

Catechetics, or Christian pedagogy, is the most direct defense 
against the onslaught of the prince of darkness, who for that reason 
in a thousand subtle and occult, as well as uncovert ways, will 
strive to obtain the supremacy. Hence is it that Christian pedagogy 
of any kind, and especially that chief mission which is its, the mis- 
sion of undermining the kingdom of the world, must of a necessity 
be full of hazard and countless dangers must beset it. St. Paul tells 
of the perils to which, as the colossal antagonist, he was subjected. 
"Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered 
shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depths of the sea. In 



DANGERS 169 

journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils 
from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, 
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false 
brethren" (II Cor. xi, 25-26). 

Of these perils he would not have the Corinthians ignorant, for 
he feared that lest perhaps when he came to them for the third time 
he would not find them such as he would, and he would be found by 
them such as they would not. In his whole demeanor toward these 
young Christians he manifests two things: the first that he would 
always come to them with the same doctrine, and that he had for the 
glory of the truth to suffer so much anguish of mind and so much 
hardship of body, they, too, might understand, that all life, and 
above all the Christian life, is a warfare upon earth, and so blows 
must be given and blows must be taken, otherwise the strong one 
will overcome and distribute the spoils. This chief warrior in 
apostolic days was the great Christian pedagogue, and the road he 
traversed is the only road to lasting achievement. Ulysses under- 
went ten years of journeyings, with their not unmixed hardships, 
to bring his handful of followers home, but how uninspiring* all 
his experience compared with the body and soul crushing Odyssey 
of the Apostle! 

A careful and a meditative perusal of the life of St. Paul will 
diffuse much light around the path of the Catechist. The first 
danger to be encountered, and a perilous danger it is, is the tendency 
to become disheartened in the work. Discouragement is the strong- 
est foe of the one who devotes himself to the task of teaching 
religion to the young. St. Paul adverts to that risk. His manner 
of overcoming it is, in reality, the only resource. He was per- 
suaded that the mission which had been so miraculously thrust upon 
him was from God, and was the highest mission and overshadowing 



170 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

all others. It was above the strength of mere man, therefore, and 
so he placed all his reliance on God. This was done in a way that 
almost compelled heaven to come to his assistance. His co-operation 
with the Master was intense and vigilant and persistent. He did 
everything as if everything depended upon himself alone, and yet 
with an abiding conviction that all depended only upon God. This 
gave him the right to beseech heaven in season and out of season. 
His success was not always apparent. He found himself time and 
again as if all his labor had been in vain. Even his preaching — the 
most eloquent preaching in substance and in form that ever fell 
from human lips — was void at times. His tribulation coming from 
his solicitude of all the churches was such "that we are pressed out 
of measure above our strength, so that we were weary of life." 
This was the weariness of the man who could say, "Thanks be 
to God, who hath given us the victory through the Lord Jesus 
Christ." 

The same door that was opened to St. Paul is there for the 
humblest preacher and the lowliest teacher to knock at. What gave 
him wings was the high appreciation of the Gospel he preached, and 
above all the unselfish motives which actuated him. This apprecia- 
tion and their motives have the same transforming power now they 
had then. They made Apostles in all the centuries, they are equally 
potent ih this twentieth century. Where a teacher loses heart, then 
all the work of education crumbles. There is no atmosphere so 
pernicious as the atmosphere created by those that are faint of 
heart. It infects the children, and their faith loses much of its 
robustness. 

To-day fighters are needed as they were in the days of the 
Apostles. But the enemies are so alert and so many that no Catholic 
may push his way through them if his religion is only a festival 



DANGERS i 7 i 

dress, if his religion is not part of every faculty of his soul, if his 
religion is not his strongest vitality, if his faith is not the armor of 
all his waking seconds, minutes and hours. Robust Christianity is 
necessary to-day and always. The fight is on different lines, but it 
is still a fight, and, therefore, the valiant only will win. 

What has been said reveals two dangers, one intensifying the 
other. The danger that the instructor lose his head and the danger 
that his lack of courage will infect all under his care, and, so will be 
begotten, instead of an army of chosen warriors, a listless host run- 
ning at the sound of the charge and dropping and dying by the 
wayside. The remedy for this spiritual torpor has been indicated. 
The voice of the Apostle is a bugle blast, or rather the voices of all 
the Apostles are bugle blasts. 

The great apostolic Catechist was not the last of his line. His 
blood has been running in many veins, and many sons and daughters 
have been raised up to him in all the ages. To-day they are scatter- 
ing themselves over the whole world — young men and young 
women, old men and old women, grown gray and venerable in the 
service of the Lord. They have not left a spot of this revolving globe 
unvisited, and to-day as the sun careers through its allotted spaces it 
beholds them among all the peoples of the earth. They are teaching 
under all the stars and in every clime. They are delivering the 
message of Christ, and from every land goes up the cry of the 
great pentecostal avatar: "Behold! are not all these that speak 
Galileans? And how have we heard, every man, our own tongue, 
wherein we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and 
inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and 
Asia, Phyrgia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya about 
Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, also, and Proselytes, Cretes 
and Arabians, we have heard them speak in our own tongues the 



i 7 2 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

wonderful works of God" (Acts ii, 8). If the laborer is worthy of 
his hire, how exceedingly great will his recompense be who, despite 
discouragement and all perils, brings, through his teaching, the 
glory of the nations to Christ ! 



QUALIFICATIONS OF INSTRUCTORS 173 



VIII. QUALIFICATIONS OF INSTRUCTORS 

Robert Burton, in a subsection of his "Anatomy of Melancholy," 
adduces many authorities to prove that school teachers are in many 
instances causes of sadness. This is certainly demonstrated by 
almost everyone's experience. "If a man escape a bad nurse, he 
may be undone by evil bringing up." Tutors and masters are often 
too vigorous or too remiss. They offend by being too stern, always 
threatening, chiding, whipping or striking. St. Austin confesses 
how cruelly he was tortured in mind for learning Greek — a con- 
fession which has been made by many before and since the age of 
the great doctor. If any profession calls for careful training it is 
that of teacher. There have been born teachers and their success 
has been phenomenal. They did not aim at doling out so much 
information by the hour or by the day, but their ambition was to 
furnish forth to the world splendidly equipped men and women. 
Much must be forgiven those who lacked professional training 
in other times because in those years the facilities were not such as 
exist now. Those factors, too, should be exercised in acquitting or 
condemning the masters of the past. Some were despicable and 
contemptible, and again some professed and imparted a scholarship 
which is as high as any these times in which we live can display. 

The idea of training teachers professionally is comparatively recent. 
To-day there are normal schools, training classes and courses in 
schools and colleges, teachers' institutes, reading circles, summer 
schools and university extension. Yet, while we are proud of the 
advance made, it must be remembered that the religious teaching 
bodies had always the very system of preparation which in the 
present is exciting such admiration and awakening such well de- 



174 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

served attention and patronage. This is especially true of the 
Jesuits. There is no new feature in modern training which can 
not be found in their ratio studiorum. How they, in consequence 
of legislation framed by the founder and his successors, slowly and 
patiently and skilfully formed their teachers is chronicled in his- 
tory. How their methods succeeded is attested by literary and scien- 
tific and learned names in every country in Christendom. It must 
not be said that they originated the practical and immeasurably 
valuable ideas of their plan of education. They make no such 
claim. They recognize, and recognize gratefully, that they absorbed 
the ideas of their predecessors and co-ordinated them and made 
them adaptable to the needs of the particular cycle in which they 
moved. There is an elasticity in their plan which excludes nothing 
that is new and good and true, and there is an inflexibility which 
prevents the traditions of the past, which helped make the past all 
that honest searchers admire, which prevents those traditions from 
being forgotten or in any way neutralized. They understood that 
the progress that destroys all the past is not only no progress, but 
is chaotic in its results. Outsiders, who know, willingly admit that 
there is no pedagogical notion energizing to-day which they have 
not crystallized and preserved, if not entirely, at least in germ. 
They have their courses in teaching and they have their normal 
classes, and their summer schools, and their university extension. 
It is a matter of regret that they do not open those doors to the 
many who are knocking because they are desirous of an instruction 
which, while it is profound and suitable to all the scientific demands 
of the age, is fragrant with the sweet odor of faith which, while it 
renders all learning incorruptible, is at the same time a soul-tonic 
against all that is nauseating and diseased in so much of that peda- 
gogy which has such a wide and dangerous influence. 



QUALIFICATIONS OF INSTRUCTORS 1 75 

The qualifications of the instructor have not yet been touched upon 
save by way of insinuation. All these pages have been written with 
one purpose only — the purpose of directly or indirectly pointing out 
what equipment is required in the teacher who is faithful and loyal 
to the inspirations of true Christian pedagogy. It is only a short 
while since pedagogy took into its fold Catechetics. There is no 
essential endowment demanded of the secular teacher that is not 
demanded of the catechist and demanded in terms not weak but 
forcible. It is a crude way to say it, but it is true, that a man 
may forget all other subjects that he has studied, but he must not 
forget what he was taught in religious instruction classes. He 
must not forget his Catechism. There is a book written on the 
term "Apperception." Its meaning is therein patiently and learnedly 
developed. The history of the word is given. Its origin is traced 
to the philosophy and its growth followed through the systems of 
Kant, Herbart and others up to Wundt'. There is a chapter on 
"The Significance of Apperception, the Spiritual Development of 
Man." The questions discussed are the theory of the applicability 
of apperception to pedagogy in its choice and arrangement of the sub- 
ject matter of education, in the investigation, extension and utiliza- 
tion of the child's experience, in the methods of instruction. What 
is apperception ? It is the psychical process of mental assimilation ; 
a process, says the writer, which has a validity beyond mere sub- 
jective perception and is of the greatest significance for all knowl- 
edge; yes, even for our whole spiritual life. This quotation has 
not been made with any hostile purpose. On the contrary we 
laud the devotion, but is not the question relevant if so much is ad- 
vanced and with zeal in behalf of the one term "Apperception"? 
Should not at least as much be urged for the little book called 
Catechism ? 



176 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The catechist whose work is the work so well done that it 
leaves on the mind and heart of the child ineffaceable traces — 
traces that would be visible when all else is obscure, is the catechist 
who rejoices the heart of the Church and who is certainly qualified 
for his post. His work is of such a nature, that investigation will 
lay bare what really are the qualifications of an instructor. So 
eminently worthy. No such work can be performed unless there are 
knowledge and preparation and self-control and control of others, 
on the part of the teacher. These are precisely the qualifications 
that are to be insisted on. Labor is imperative, but it must be 
the labor of love springing from high motives. This spirit of 
industry compels preparation, and preparation guarantees knowl- 
edge. The knowledge to be insisted upon here is twofold. The 
instructor must understand what he is going to teach and must 
be able to give it to his class in a clear, simple, interesting way. 
This is the real labor of preparation. The mature mind must con- 
ceive it in such a way that the volatile mind will be attracted by it 
at first, then seize it, then hold it. How much effort is involved 
in such labor only those know who have made the effort. All 
preliminaries will be in vain if the instructor is powerless to con- 
trol himself and his class. The one who controls himself will soon 
be monarch, not tyrant, of all he surveys. 

Libraries have been printed on the necessary endowments of the 
teacher and it is right and good that it is so, but it must be con- 
ceded, first, that books of themselves can not fashion a preceptor, 
and, secondly, that all books, we may say, are reducible to the simple 
rule that he must know what he teaches and must so teach as to 
make his hearers, however young, attentive and eager listeners, 



JUSTICE i 77 



IX. JUSTICE 

111 that noble achievement,, "The Catholic Encyclopedia," a work 
which reflects vast learning, high scholarship, indomitable courage, 
inspiring leadership and devoted cooperation, and throughout all 
an honesty unimpeachable which make it a monument more endur- 
ing than marble or bronze to American Catholic enterprise and in- 
dustry, in an article we find that in the early Church Catechumen 
was a name applied to one who had not yet been initiated into the 
sacred mysteries, but was undergoing a course of preparation for 
that purpose. Catechuma is a word occurring in Gal. vi, 6: "Let 
him that is instructed in the word communicate to him that instructed 
him in all good things." In the same sixth chapter the Apostle 
continues : "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things 
a man shall sow those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in 
his flesh, of the flesh also shall he reap corruption. But he that 
soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting. And 
in doing good let us not fail, for in due time we shall reap not 
failing." These words lay the basis of all justice. They point 
at a duty to be fulfilled as well as a contract to be kept. In all deal- 
ings with men there is undoubtedly a contract of some kind implied 
or expressed. In every attitude we assume or find ourselves in, 
'toward God the same idea prevails. All human activity, that is, 
all deliberate human activity in all times and in all spaces, is an 
effort either to obtain or bestow justice. It has been defined by 
St. Thomas to be a perpetual and persistent desire to give to all 
collectively and individually what to them belongs. It is a virtue, 



178 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

he says, because it makes its possessor righteous and perfects his 
work. Among all the virtues it is pre-eminent. 

Applying these notions to the catechumen and the catechist, evi- 
dently the catechumen is entitled to something from the catechist, 
and the catechist is entitled to something from the catechumen. 
When both the teacher and the taught find their communication un- 
broken, undoubtedly they are filling the ends, at least some of the 
ends, of justice. Their relations are based on some kind of a contract. 
This contract, to put it plainly, seems to be that the teacher will do 
all in his power to impart Christian doctrine, and the pupils will do 
all in their power according to their condition and age not to frus- 
trate his purpose. Honesty unmistakable is supposed to pervade all 
their actions toward each other. This is the case in all teaching. 
Those who teach practically agree with the parents and the chil- 
dren themselves to educate those intrusted to them. But the con- 
tract is not a one-sided one. The children and their parents are 
equally included. This is a truth which is not brought home 
frequently enough or with sufficient emphasis to parents and to 
children. The child may do much to hinder the proper work of the 
master, but not a tithe as much as it is in the power of parents to 
prevent. If this were kept more constantly in mind than it is, the 
atmosphere would not be so rife with unjust criticism. In the main, 
it would seem to be the fact that there are fewer teachers unmind- 
ful of their obligations than there are unconscientious parents. 

The child is father of the man, this is true in more senses than the 
one intended by the poet. The child nowadays is not only fashioning 
his own manhood, but he is father and mother of his own father and 
mother in the imperious way in which he compels them to execute 
his commands, no matter how disastrous he and they know the con- 
sequences will inevitably be. Parents will be punished for many 



JUSTICE 179 

things, but for no one thing more than for their neglect of their 
children. This is equally true of those, of all those, who have care 
of souls. Moved by this St. John Chrysostom, not rashly, as he 
himself writes, not rashly but as he feels and is convinced, uttered 
that horrifying menace against pastors. It is to be remembered 
that he made this threat to awaken all priests who might be mind- 
less of their obligation, but he says it is meant not so much for those 
whose lives are unedifying as for those who do not prevent the sins 
of souls given over to their care. No neglect is comparable to the 
neglect of catechism, and following closely is the conduct of the 
catechist who forgets the obligation of his position, and through 
lack of zeal or through indolence of any kind performs carelessly 
his allotted task. 

The teacher is under contract with God and with the Church 
to plant, and plant deeply, the seeds of Christian doctrine in 
the minds of children. The nature of this contract becomes 
serious when it is considered that if it is not adhered to, the souls 
of so many will be lost to God and to the Church, or if not lost will 
depart in so many deplorable ways from high ideals of life and 
conduct. It certainly is not a slight misdemeanor to break an agree- 
ment which involves so many and so much. Justice, therefore, is 
a virtue eminently necessary to and befitting a teacher, and above all 
a Catechism teacher. His fidelity to God and to His Church loyally 
kept, there will not be any danger of his becoming disloyal to his 
children and to their parents. The contract covers a large area 
and the interests at stake are commensurate with that area — in that 
area are God, the Church, the children, the parents and himself, 
and all the consequences they entail. The more we penetrate the 
true nature of this engagement the more hugely does the responsi- 
bility of the catechist and of all teachers bulk. 



180 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The children, with all their rights as well as with all their hopes 
and fears, are never to be lost sight of. They have the right to exact 
from their teacher a clear knowledge of their faith — such a knowl- 
edge as shall enable them to defend and to practise it under ordinary 
circumstances, such a knowledge as will make them glad and proud 
of it. They are entitled to a full measure of justice at the hands of 
their instructor. They are entitled to his good opinion of them until 
they forfeit it. They have a right to his good word as long as they 
do nothing to lose it. They have a right to his attention, to his im- 
partial attention, to the same attention he bestows on others. He, 
as a consequence, is in duty bound to harbor no suspicious thought 
of them, to frame no rash judgment against them. He must not 
defile their reputation. If he says a calumnious word of them, 
he is bound to retract and to retract plenarily. The duty of a 
master is a difficult one, but so noble and so ennobling. 

What is to be said of the justice from the children to the teacher? 
Children are lynx-eyed and they instinctively grasp everything. If 
their master has an abiding desire to be just in all things toward 
them he may make mistakes, but the children will condone because 
they know the real man who is behind the mistakes. Let him be just 
and they will be just; unsuspicious and they will be unsuspicious. 
If a master only knew what a power for molding is his! He 
would look upon his mission as the sublime one it is and he would 
place his life as high as his mission. "For what things a man 
shall sow, those also shall he reap. For in due time we shall reap, 
not failing." What more can we think or say? 



COOPERATION 18 1 



X. COOPERATION 

The conspicuous virtue of justice — the virtue which balances all 
the worlds — is an attribute of God. His justice is the exemplar on 
the mountain up to which all must look. Our justice must be meas- 
ured by and modeled on His. This, while a terrifying, is at the 
same time a very consoling truth. Terrifying because "with 
patience stands He waiting, with exactness grinds He all"; con- 
soling, because whatever help we need He will give and whatever 
sacrifices we make He will remunerate us for, and whatever our 
merits, not an iota of reward will He deprive us of. This is espe- 
cially worth remembering, when engaged in work that is essentially 
the business of the Father. "Well done thou good and faithful 
servant," is the most precious recompense man has it in his power 
to receive, and the higher the service the more splendid the guerdon. 
How high is the service of those whose life work it is to teach 
religion clean and undefiled before God ! Of them His justice pro- 
claimed that "they shall receive an hundredfold and shall possess 
life everlasting." This proclamation concerns chiefly priests and 
religious, but the overflow of the hundredfold will surely fall in 
graded measure upon those who help the ministers of the Church 
in the necessary but arduous task of catechetical work. The con- 
sideration of all this should inspire all engaged in it to untiring 
labor in their special field. It should inspire, too, plenary coopera- 
tion — cooperation indefatigable, harmonious and intelligent. 

The first fruit of cooperation is unity and from unity there springs 
a strength which makes for success. The scattering of forces is the 
prelude to losses and absolute defeat. In Catechetics there is one 



182 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

unfailing source of unity and of that unity of action without which 
there is no genuine working together. That source lies sparkling 
and full in the oneness of the Church, which is one, because there 
is the one Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and father of all, 
who is above all and through all and in us all. The unity of faith 
means unity of doctrine compelling all to believe and teach the 
same truths and no others. That this is an unfailing fountain of 
strength is apparent. In a battle, what nerves men's arms and stimu- 
lates more robust energy, more aggressive activity than the knowl- 
edge that all have come from the same country, are fighting for the 
same cause and are looking forward to the opening of the same 
gates of triumph? All catechists are one, therefore, in mind and 
this harmony of thought, if skilfully directed, must inevitably result 
in cooperation. There are many elements to be reckoned with in 
this so essential factor in all successful pedagogy. There are the 
director, the teachers, the parents, and lastly the children. 

As a guiding principle, it must be admitted that at the bottom and 
at the top and throughout all the fabric there must be found subor- 
dination. There must be a leading, an authoritative agency. There 
must be a head. There must be a force competent to swing har- 
moniously and vigorously all the auxiliaries. Individuality must not 
be obliterated and the compelling hand must be gentle and strong 
and deft. The director is this propelling focal energy. From 
him all action must proceed as radii from a center. The im- 
portance of his position, while it makes him finally responsible, 
throws upon him the largest burden of the travail. It will be- 
long to him sometimes to mold, sometimes to repair, always to 
have an eye upon every part of the vast machinery. His most 
frequent function will be that of lubrication which literally means 
casting oil on waters that have an inherent tendency to be troubled. 



COOPERATION 183 

It is his right to demand intelligent obedience and to quell all 
refractoriness. His rank is supreme though by no means enviable. 
As he is, are all his subordinates. They are strong, they are weak, 
they are lax, they are careless, incautious and imprudent, in the 
measure in which he exhibits these qualities or these defects. It 
is not difficult to perceive that the eyes of all in the school, of 
teachers and of scholars, are to be kept fixed upon him. Further, 
it is clear that the director must be a priest. His dignity, in this 
wise, will help in untold ways, to create an atmosphere of respect 
and of order. He will be able to impress upon his subordinates the 
nature of their attitude toward him. Implicit must be their follow- 
ing in their respective classes of all his wishes. Opposition of any 
kind is ruinous. Counterplans are disastrous. The obedience and 
respect they give him will be the measure of the submission and 
respect of their own pupils. 

Perfect cooperation supposes not only harmony between the 
director and the teachers, but also, and very imperatively, harmony 
among the teachers themselves. Contentions are to be abomi- 
nated. "Six things there are which the Lord hateth and the 
seventh his soul detesteth. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands 
that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked plot's, 
feet that are swift to run into mischief. A deceitful witness that 
uttereth lies and him that soweth discord among brethren" (Prov. 
vi, 16). Sympathetic collaboration will prevent many evils and 
lighten many burdens. Strife is the parent of much wretched- 
ness, and jealousy is the enemy of peace and happiness. This 
dwelling together in unity is a well-spring of much that the 
heart craves. Individual effort will contribute a great deal toward 
this spirit of union. It is well to bear in mind the advice of St. 
Augustine: "In things certain, unity; in things uncertain, liberty; 



184 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

in all things, charity." The parents are not least among the co- 
operators. In fact they would seem to come, as contributors to this 
much to be desired consummation, immediately after the director. 
How much dealing they should have with individual teachers must 
depend on the method of discipline which is followed. Generally 
speaking, their cooperation should be restricted to intercourse with 
the director. In his hands alone all the punitive arrangements 
should be. Punishment and reward he alone should control. Such 
a plan should not be viewed with disfavor by the teachers. It is 
a plan which relieves them of much vexation of spirit and is a 
forceful deterrent from partiality which always antagonizes justice 
and which is a curse falling on him who gives and on him who 
takes. 

The cooperation of fathers and mothers is absolutely nec- 
essary. The director and his teachers are helpless without it. 
There is no task harder or more ungrateful than the task which the 
director has to perform in his endeavors to induce the parents to be 
vigilant over their children in bringing them outside of school 
hours to spend the allotted time in preparing their Sunday school 
work and in compelling their attendance at the Catechism classes. 
The refusal to identify themselves with the director on all that ap- 
pertains to the religious instruction of their children is, perhaps, the 
greatest obstacle to success. This refusal is becoming more and 
more prevalent and is responsible for the many spiritual disorders 
which are becoming epidemic among so many Catholic children. 
This disinclination on the part of parents to conform with the ex- 
press injunctions of the director is lamentable and is answerable 
for the lack of cooperation on the side of the children. 

Punctuality in attendance and the necessary study of their Cate- 
chism lessons and attention in class hours fill out the measure of the 



COOPERATION 185 

children's obligations. Let the parents see to it that they attend and 
that they study and the rest may be left with fullest confidence in 
the hands of the director and of the teachers. If the parents are 
remiss in this, they are doing their strongest toward rendering 
Catechetics a lost art, the Sunday school a memory and the Church 
another Rachel lamenting for her children because they are not. 
But the mercy of God is above all His works and His love for His 
Church will come to the rescue. 



1 86 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XI. SUCCESS 



Spiritless must every effort be that is not actuated by the desire 
of success ; and the keener that desire, the more enviable the success. 
The phrase, "Nothing succeeds like success" is not altogether 
tautological, because it is true that success is the cause of success. 
It has a teleological force. It is an end and possesses the nature of 
an end, which, as ethics and experience have established, is the first 
thing in the intention, though the last thing in the execution. 
It is the end which gives the impulse to the movement. It seems to 
be behind and before, it seems to push and to pull, it is somewhat of 
a power-house. There is no power so cogent or so peculiar as an 
end. It is the last thing reached and it gives the first impulse. 
The end is potent. All the sacrifices of the Man-God — all the wring- 
ing of His heart were the outcome of the end. All this is true of 
success. In fact we must say that success and end are identical, 
and so all that may be predicated of an end in view, may be 
enunciated of success. There is a good end and there is a bad 
end. There is a success which is a glory, and there is a success 
which is a shame. There is nothing more dismal than failure, noth- 
ing so bright as success. Yet, there is a sucess which it were bet- 
ter not to have, which were worse than failure. 

Wealth, position, pleasure are eminently desirable, but there is a 
wealth that is worse than poverty, and a position worse than servi- 
tude, and a pleasure than which agony is preferable. The end 
and, therefore, success, is not made up of itself alone. There are 
the means which must never be left out of the count. No matter 
how estimable the end, or how high, if the means are vile, then 



SUCCESS 187 

success is disreputable and vile as well. It is when discovered in 
this light that the success of so many is the rankest failure. There 
is tainted wealth, there is stolen position, and there is a pleasure 
that is the uncrowning of manhood and the bestializing of humanity. 
All the successes of this world are tantamount to failure, when 
men miss the goal of their being and of all its powers. Yet suc- 
cess and the desire of success must not be minimized. Success 
means the conquering all the resistance which may obstruct one's 
path toward a desired achievement. It is more commendable when 
the obstacles are more numerous. It is highest success when it has 
been won in spite of repeated failures, when the courage has never 
flagged and when effort never relaxed, for the truest of a man is 
to hope against hope and to pluck success out of the very heart of 
failure. 

In Christian pedagogy there is success which is throbbing with 
stimulation, and, if in Christian pedagogy there is one branch suc- 
cess in which means the victory which overcometh the world, that 
branch is Catechetics. The aim of Catechetics is to bring before 
the powers of the young, the basis upon which all uprightness is 
built, the motives for righteousness, to show that the lowest depth 
of unreasoning is reached by those misshapen lives which are not 
in harmony with its principles; to make clear that man's goodness 
is man's perfection of his highest parts; that the peoples and indi- 
viduals who are not in tune with the principles which it inculcates 
are retrogressive; that irreligion and immorality are identical, and 
that it makes for a brighter state of things; that it manifests the 
commands of the Maker. To bring about all this, or to bring 
about only a part of all this, is certainly incentive more than suffi- 
cient to make efforts which will never grow unstrenuous until suc- 
cess in this particular field is reaped. 



1 88 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

The catechist may fancy the little that he does is hardly worth 
while. This is a temptation, and among temptations one most 
frequent and one as diabolical as it is frequent. Success before the 
Lord is not what we have done, but what we have tried to do. 

There is a passage in one of Trollope's volumes which portrays 
the zeal of a Catholic priest : "He had but one duty before him — 
to do his part in bringing the world over to his faith. It might be 
that, with toil of his whole life, he should convert but one — that he 
should but half convert one, that he should no more than dis- 
turb the thought of one so that future conversion might be possible. 
But even that would be work done. He would sow the seed, if it 
might be so, but if it were not given him to do that, he would at 
any rate plough the ground." This is in strict reason, and accord- 
ing to the strictest teachings of our faith, and it applies to all 
kinds of workers in whatever part of the vineyard of the divine 
Lord. 

It is consoling to know that it is only the work done that counts, 
and we will find that when all the things of earth are made mani- 
fest in the searching light of another sphere, we will find that it 
is only the work done that tells, that succeeds. It is demonstrable 
from all this that the catechist, be he priest or layman, has this 
privilege in his special employment, the privilege of being secure 
against all failure, if he but does with his best effort that which 
lies before him to be done. In no other work and among no other 
workers does this guarantee exist. Does it exist in commercial, 
political, literary or scientific life? Can it be found in any other 
kind of pedagogy ? Consoling as this knowledge is, there is some- 
thing threatening when the work is not done. Again, even this 
view is a further motive for waking up, and gives added strength 
for the task. If it were necessary to make a plea in favor of inde- 



SUCCESS 189 

fatigable labor there is one eloquent enough in the words of one 
who defined genius as an enormous capacity for work : 

"Labor is discovered to be the grand conqueror enriching and 
building up nations more surely than battles." 

Theory is one thing and practice is another. But there are 
theories and theories. There are theories which build up dream- 
worlds and fill them with idlers and people them with Utopians. 
There are theories, too, which are built upon the experience of the 
centuries and to repeal them is to contradict the whole past and 
to prepare the way for a chaotic future. But the view that success 
is the child of unremitting labor, is a view which has been tried 
and not found wanting. Time and time again do we find 
Scripture pronouncing that sloth has never produced, and will 
never produce, aught but weeds. "If thou be diligent, thy har- 
vest shall come as a fountain, and want shall flee far from thee." 
"Where there are no oxen the crib is empty, but where there is 
much corn there the strength of the ox is manifest." These 
utterances are not inspired only, but they are confirmed by multi- 
tudinous happenings in the history of the race. Success will crown 
the man whose hands have followed the dictates of his reason. But 
that man must address his whole being to his work. It must be the 
outcome — that work of his — of his mind, of his senses, and above 
all of his will. It is the will that makes the man and directs all 
his energies. When a man puts all his life into action, then there 
can be one issue, and one issue only — not defeat, but victory. But 
his efforts demand all his life — his physical, his intellectual, and 
chiefly his moral life. His thoughts will bring forth abundance, 
and his piety will make that abundance fruitful and perennial. His 
work will rear up the only structure worth upbuilding, that which 
is built upon the rock and defies time and storms and all decay. 



i 9 o CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XII. PREPARATION FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 

The preparation required for instructing the young in the truths 
of their faith is very much akin to the preliminary work which the 
precursor felt he was called upon to perform. His was the voice 
of one crying in the wilderness : "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every 
mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be 
made straight, and the rough ways plain" (Luke iii). Really, this 
admonition of John the Baptist is a compendious declaration of all 
the catechist has to do, as well as of all the difficulties he has to 
overcome. The children who sit in the presence of him who teaches 
Catechism are as motley, as undisciplined, and as ignorant a crowd 
as that by whom the prophet was confronted when he began his 
missionary career. There is the same crookedness of mind, there 
are the same depths of ignorance, the same mountains and hills of 
untutored and restless dispositions, the same roughness as well as 
the same stubborn disinclination. Moreover, the object to be ob- 
tained is identical; that "all flesh shall see the salvation of God." 
Nobody would dare enter a field so bristling with difficulties without 
considering how they are to be met and overcome. The dangers are 
manifold, and above all there is the danger, which is the chief one, 
of so affecting these newcomers that religion and all that appertains 
to it may become, to their uncultivated palates, of all things the 
most unsavory; there is the danger that through unwise ministra- 
tions they may run the risk of never seeing the salvation of God. 

Only the one who knows not, only the one who has not calculated 



PREPARATION FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION i 9 i 

all the chances for good or evil, would dare to enter such a domain 
without much thought arid much deliberation and much anxiety; 
yes, and without much prayer. No one but the inconsiderate one 
would jump into such an arena unarmed. Yet there is much to be 
regretted on this score, and many and many a young heart has 
been hardened forever against influences which, wielded by deft 
hands, would have softened them and won them forever to a tender 
affection for the Church and all that it has to bestow. It makes no 
difference what be the grade of the matter to be imparted, the same 
serious forethought is absolutely necessary. It may be a prayer 
class, or a first Confession class, or a first Communion class, or a 
Confirmation class, or a perseverance class, the same conditions ob- 
tain. Preparation is absolutely necessary. This preparation supposes 
that the teacher is master of his subject, master in memory and mas- 
ter in understanding. Let it be the case that his work is limited 
to the making his boys and girls memorize their prayers. It seems 
laughable to say that he should know his prayers himself. It cer- 
tainly is not a thing to stir laughter, if he stumbles, if for example 
he has forgotten how to make the sign of the Cross, that sublime 
preliminary to all prayer. Yet such ludicrous exhibitions have oc- 
curred in the classroom. There is no ridiculous manifestation 
which has not been made and which will not be made by an over- 
confident teacher. To teach anything, the thing taught must be 
known, and must be known so well that it will be impossible that, 
even for an unconscious second, it will be unremembered. This is 
especially so when the tasks are mere memory tasks. Nor should 
the prayers remain very long, even for the youngest children, in 
the memory stage. Little by little, piecemeal, should the explana- 
tion of the words learned by heart be imparted. This opening of 
young minds can not be done offhanded, preparatory work is 



192 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

needed, and the preparatory labor for this is not so easy as it may 
appear. 

A previous examination of the expressions used in the prayers 
will suggest' the necessity of breaking up the long words, of sub- 
stituting familiar synonyms, of connecting them with some or 
other term, which will serve as a help to fastening them and their 
meaning everlastingly in the memory. 

Children pray so heedlessly because there is no signification for 
them in the words they employ. In fact, how often is it due to the 
carelessness of the teacher that these young tongues give utterance 
to syllables, or combinations of syllables, which are not only devoid 
of sense, but form a counter-sense, and when heard, are in the last 
degree, and pitifully so, absurd and ridiculous. It is very often the 
custom to deliver over these tenderlings to the uncertain solicitude 
of boys or girls very little older than themselves. Harmful in the 
extreme is this custom. The vigilance of the director will find that 
his duty has to be exercised more in these classes than in the others. 
How often have not priests been forced to listen in Confession to 
acts of contrition which have not contrition in them save in the 
good intention of the penitent. 

In the public singing of children, or in the public recitation of the 
essential prayers, how often the attentive ear detects words, or 
rather a jumble of syllables that, if written down as sung or prayed, 
would expose the child to censure and, by implication, would involve 
in a worse reproach those who had to do with his upbringing in 
religious instruction. Much more might be said relatively to want 
of preparation on the part of the teacher in this foundation of all 
catechetical education. All that has been put forward is applicable, 
as a matter of course, to the higher branches of these instructions. 

To frame or help frame a strong will in the line of right conduct is 



PREPARATION FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 



193 



the end of Christian pedagogy. The will can not be strengthened 
without the illumination of the mind. The understanding of the doc- 
trine of the Church must precede the accepting of it, and the under- 
standing of the Sacraments must antedate their reception, and the 
understanding of the nature of duties and obligations must come be- 
fore their performance and fulfilment. The lack of this knowledge 
has been the cause of much errancy in faith and morals. Whence we 
are to conclude that, if the teacher of these subjects appreciates the 
situation^ he will realize at once that he can not make clear what is 
half cryptic to himself. That he must study will be his first deduc- 
tion, and that he must so study that he becomes master will be his 
next, and that he must so master that he can impress indelibly his 
knowledge on others will be his final inference. 

As the teacher works, his class will work with him. It is a pity 
that the contagion or infection, call it what you will, of example 
in the teacher is not more widely understood. In fact, the teacher 
makes his own atmosphere, and he gets from his class chiefly what 
he brings to it. If he brings knowledge, from it he will receive 
knowledge; if he brings understanding, understanding will be re- 
turned to him from his pupils. They will give him back wisdom 
for wisdom, piety for piety, and preparation for preparation. Better 
than all else, his memory will be perpetuated through the Catholic 
demeanor of those whom he taught how to pray to their God, how 
to believe in, and love and give glory to, their Church. 



l 9 4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XIII. BIBLE HISTORY 



The Bible was written and compiled by authors providentially 
selected, directed and illuminated by the spirit of God. It did not 
come into its present shape by hazard. These statements imply that 
there is discussion of some kind agitating the world of thought 
and religion. It is a much abused work, and that it is a volume still 
claiming attention and authority, holds a suggestion that there is 
something about it which makes for indestructibility, a something 
that hedges it; something like adversity that conserves it, rough- 
hew it as we will. Catholics are of one mind concerning it. Here 
and there, however, there are groups of literati, they can hardly 
be called theologians, who have advanced, and still enunciate, con- 
clusions at variance with the accepted doctrines of the Church. 
The Church has come to the rescue of the faithful, and let it be 
hoped to the rescue of many among the unfaithful and especially 
of many of the disloyal, in an encyclical as well as in a syllabus. 
The gist of these utterances was a reiteration of the old truths that 
the sacred Scriptures and the dogmas of the Church are divine. It 
is this superlative excellence of the Scriptures which must be im- 
pressed upon the young. The Bible must be the book of books for 
them, and no respect they may show it can be exaggerated. No 
better way for this consummation can be devised than the study 
in the Catechism classes of the Bible history. Bible history and 
the history of the Bible, though distinct, help to the better under- 
standing of each other. Neither useless nor out of place would 
it be, to instruct the young as to the first striking fact in relation to 



BIBLE HISTORY i 95 

the Bible, the fact that in olden, as well as in modern, times the Bible 
was treated with the utmost reverence by all, of no matter what 
degree or condition ; that it was just as sacred to the king as to the 
peasant, to the slave as to the master. 

Children will drink in eagerly all that is told them about the keep- 
ing and the handing down from generation to generation of these 
precious heirlooms of the world. They will appreciate that 
neither gold nor silver, nor precious stones were anything but 
dross in comparison with them. It will not be impossible for 
even the youngest to realize how much joy the words of in- 
spiration have brought to all in moments when everything was 
dark ; how many sinners they brought back to God ; how they taught 
so many to live well, and to die without any fear but in the confi- 
dence that death meant God and heaven and the angels, and it all 
forever. They will learn with facility, as well as profitably, how 
the Church took care of the Bible from the very beginning and 
watched over it ; how the Church fought battles for it, and how the 
Church to-day holds it in veneration. The solicitude of the Church 
for the Bible is apparent in so many ways. So fondly, too, that she 
never lets it out of her sight; so fondly, that the Missal and the 
Breviary are crowded with selections from the Old and the New 
Testament. They must be taught that the Church is the divinely 
appointed guardian of Holy Writ'. In this way it will not easily 
slip their memory that what the Church says of the Bible is the 
truth, and the only truth about it, and that if any man contradicts 
the Church concerning this Book he is not stating the truth, but 
is in error, and sooner or later will find himself in danger of being 
condemned by that Church. 

An introduction of this nature to the study of Bible history will 
whet the appetites of the young and make them eager to become 



196 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

acquainted with the men and women, and with the sayings and 
doings of the men and women, whose 'story is told in the hallowed 
pages of that volume which they have been trained to place first 
among all the volumes of the world, that have been, are and yet 
will be. They can not think so highly of the Bible without esteem- 
ing that Church to which that wonderful book has been entrusted. 
From the very beginning they must gather that for them the 
Church is everything, is father, and mother, and family, and coun- 
try for them; that, though the Bible is a wonderful possession, it is 
not the Church; that their thought should be the thought of St. 
Augustine, who exclaimed that the Church was his teacher, and that 
he would not believe the Scriptures unless he was bidden to do so 
by a church that can neither deceive nor be deceived. The proper 
relation between Bible and Church must be insisted on, and thus 
the love for the Church will not lessen their love for the Bible ; but, 
on the contrary, their love for the Bible will be according to the 
measure of their love for the Church. 

The study of Bible history may be begun in the very lowest class 
of Catechism, and with the very youngest children. Prayer saying, 
as it is carried on, and as it can not help being carried on, in the 
prayer class, will soon weary unto death those restless bodies. We 
know how soon a story will make them drop all their fatigue and 
crowd around the narrator. There are many sources whence inter- 
esting narratives may be derived, but' is there any source so brim- 
ming as Bible history ? These little boys and girls can not read, but 
they can remember, and if they are told that on the next Sunday 
any one of them may be asked to repeat what was recited from 
Scripture, may be asked to tell the story in their own way, it 
will not seldom happen that the catechist will be surprised into 
pleasant wonder and the companions into glad attention as the tiny 



BIBLE HISTORY i 97 

catechumen recites his or her tale. Bible history is useful for all. 
In advanced classes a different treatment: of the subject is required, 
but, no matter how advanced the classes, the elementary principle 
of all pedagogy must be adhered to, and the instruction furnished 
must be interesting as well as useful. 

There are many Bible histories published. It is scarcely neces- 
sary to say that, no matter what their style, they will never equal the 
simple beauty of the Scripture narrative. This suggests the benefit 
that might accrue from comparing the recital of the text-book 
with that of the Bible. Besides increasing the love of the class- 
members for Holy Writ, it will help toward familiarizing them with 
its unique language and with itself. 

Non-Catholics are credited with a better knowledge of the Scrip- 
ture than Catholics have. This, perhaps, was true in other days, 
but the pastors have thrown themselves with such devotion into 
Sunday school work, so much enthusiasm has been aroused and 
organization has become so perfect, that if the reproach is a justi- 
fiable one, in a very short time it will be groundless. The Bible 
will most surely become in the very safest way the classic of the 
Sunday school. This transformation will take place speedily and 
then will flourish His cause, who is the chief glory of all its pages, 
Christ the Master and Redeemer. 



198 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XIV. CATECHISM 

The term Catechism implies three things. It signifies the book 
itself, the class in which the book is used and explained, and the 
method of instruction. Such a comprehensive theme can be touched 
on, in pages like these, only in a very summary fashion. As a book, 
it is a popular manual, an exact and accurate resume of Chris- 
tian Doctrine. It is not supposed to be a scientific or scholastic 
treatise. It does not contain the opinions which prevail or are 
discussed among the learned. It aims at presenting only the estab- 
lished truths of dogma and morality. Children and adults, in 
fact all the faithful are supposed to be able to find within it all 
that it is necessary to know, and all that it is necessary to believe 
and practise in order to reach heaven, or rather not to lose the 
celestial recompense through voluntary or culpable ignorance. So 
much for the general idea. In form it should be clear, precise, easy 
to grasp and to remember, for the Catechism is intended to be learned 
by heart. In form, also, it is made up of question and answer, and 
constitutes a sort of dialogue between the Master and the disciples. 
It is short, yet rich in matter, because the catechist is expected to 
explain it and develop it aloud for the instruction of the hearers. 
The Catechisms placed in the hands of children offer great variety. 
There is, however, uniformity as to the plan, which is to propose, 
first, the truths to believe, or the articles of the Creed, then the 
precepts to be obeyed; that is, the Commandments of God, and of 
the Church, and, lastly, the means to be taken in order to believe 
and to practise ; that is, prayer and the Sacraments. 



CATECHISM 199 

In the Vatican Council it was decided to set on foot a project 
for the composing of a small Catechism for the Universal Church. 
This much we glean from Vacant's "Dictionnaire Theologique." 
All who are interested are awaiting eagerly for an universal Cate- 
chism, and are convinced that when it appears it will be a manual 
distinguished for simplicity of language, brevity of treatment, and 
accuracy of doctrine. How, from a compendium of this kind, there 
can easily be developed larger and more comprehensive and more 
explanatory volumes is not difficult to understand. How many 
failures exist at the present time is as lamentable as it is evident. 
Some of the Catechisms which are given the children have lost 
sight of the vernacular, and would be almost as profitable if written 
in some rare idiom. How much labor they unnecessarily exact from 
the teacher, and how much they mystify beginners, is a matter 
of general remark. There were, in other days, Catechisms in English 
which offered the truths of our religion in such plain terms that 
they were a joy forever. One other benefit they conferred. When- 
ever a text from Holy Writ contained the answer, that text was 
given, and when the children who were fortunate enough to have 
studied these Catechisms grew up, they were pleasantly surprised to 
find that, without being aware of it, they had been quoting Scrip- 
ture from their earliest years. Such Catechisms were quiet monitors 
for the teachers ; silently warning them that the best language to 
use, not only in catechetical, but in all instruction, is that which 
is made up of short and, for that reason, intelligible words. 

The literal history of the Catechism is as instructive as it is inter- 
esting. In the first years of the Church, in the absence of printing, 
Catechism was confined to oral teaching exclusively. How splen- 
didly that task was performed, and how generously those efforts 
were responded to, is written large and bright in the acts by which 



soo CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

the martyrs, so numerous and so heroic, proved their loyalty to the 
Church for which their Catechism, such as the catechists of those 
days presented it, prepared them. Pedagogy embraces all sciences 
and all knowledge, but without the truths of Catechism, it will never 
work successfully for the uplifting of the peoples. Catechism, 
and the doctrine it imparts, is the Baptism, not of John, but of 
Christ, which christianizes all education. Taken in this sense 
Catechism is simply the bringing of the book, and all that it con- 
tains, to the masses. The class has many forms, but the book and 
the teachers are necessary for those results, without which the 
Catechism itself would remain, in so many instances, a dead letter. 
It is the class, or, rather, the book, the teacher, and the children, 
that claims the deepest solicitude on the part of those whose duty 
it is to see that souls take no harm. The work which is theirs, is 
neither trifling in itself nor in its aims. 

Organize the Sunday school, and the Church will take care of 
its own interests. Make that organization secondary and a blight, 
in some way or other, will fall upon all other ecclesiastical ministra- 
tions. A flourishing Sunday school proclaims a flourishing church, 
and a flourishing parish, and lays the foundation-stone of a flour- 
ishing Catholic community. 

In earlier days the missionary Jesuits, who went among un- 
civilized peoples, with their zeal and their Catechism, so fired, the 
souls of those whom they were evangelizing, that among tribes who 
numbered thousands and tens of thousands and more, days and 
weeks and months passed, in a fervor so great, and a conscientious- 
ness so delicate, that not one mortal sin was committed. Can any 
civilization, however vaunted, boast a progress so admirable? It 
was simply a reproduction of those early years of the Church, 
when the first converts were one soul and one mind, and loved God 



CATECHISM 201 

and one another. No limits are assignable to the moral benefits of 
religious instruction, prudently organized and zealously imparted. 

After the book and the class ; or, rather, along with the book and 
the class, method is the thing. The little book still retains the name 
by which it was called from the beginning, and that name empha- 
sizes the method which has always been so fruitful — a method which 
no innovation can improve. The method is a communicative one, 
it supposes an interchange of word and thought between the Cate- 
chist and the catechumen. It was oral. It was oral not only in 
the sense that the teaching was vocal, but in the sense that the 
question of the teacher was included in the answer of the child. 
There is more to this than catches the careless observer. It tells of 
the vitality of the teaching of the teacher. It speaks of the con- 
stant attention called for by the instructor, and given by the disciple. 
In the making of many Catechisms this idea has been lost sight of 
altogether, and in so much has their directive power been weakened. 
The real working part of the class is a rapid-firing process, and 
where memory and attention are concerned the process is an in- 
valuable one, and must reap a rich harvest. After all, in the 
matter of Catechism, memory is the faculty which has to be called 
into action. Things memorized, though not understood at a the 
moment, will come back with understanding in later moments. 
This much, in a very brief fashion, regarding the three notions 
which the term Catechism is traditionally admitted to convey. A 
triple notion each fraction of which designates an essential element 
of catechetics. Which is the most important element ? We need the 
book and the catechist and the scholars. Give us the trained and 
zealous teacher, and the children will come, and the book will be to 
them a priceless possession for all time. 



202 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY, 



XV. LITURGY 

Catechetics embraces so many cognate subjects, and all of them 
so important that a perfect catechist would necessarily be a man 
of varied tastes, constant study and comprehensive scholarship. 
Catechetics is the science of religion. In its elementary form it 
seems to be so restricted that even a child might master it. That 
limited matter which is treated in the early classes, in the classes 
which aim at preparing the young for the intelligent and worthy 
reception of the Sacraments, is limited for the pupils only, but not 
for the teacher. To impart accurately the knowledge indispensable 
for Confession, Communion and Confirmation necessitates a knowl- 
edge far in excess of the contents of the brief manual. This is a 
statement which is not difficult of verification. It is no exaggeration 
to say that it is almost rash, if not dangerous, to leave the task to 
any one who is not a theologian, for no mere tiro is a safe guide 
among the multitudinous problems which are constantly surging 
/relative to Penance, to the Eucharist and to Confirmation. As 
skilled theologians can not be had for this work, then the duty of 
inspection and preventions falls more weightily and more constantly 
on the shoulders of the directors. There are more radii and tangents 
connected with the circle of Catechism than with any other branch 
of education. What subject, it may be asked, is not touched upon 
directly or indirectly by Catechism? If Catechetics has one thing 
more than another in view, it is to so instruct the boy and the girl 
that their minds will accept readily the doctrine of the Church and 
their hearts warm toward all its customs and practises. It is for this 
reason that no course of Catechetics is complete which does not 



LITURGY 203 

present to the learners all that concerns the Church, all its past and 
present history, all its forms of private and public devotion, its 
ritual and its liturgy. They must be taught that in a great organ- 
ization such as the Church is, an organization which addresses itself 
to the interests and the most momentous interests of men, an organi- 
zation whose solicitude extends to the poor and to the rich, to the 
young and to the old, there is no part of it which is trifling, there 
is no part of its activity which must not in some way or other be 
understood. The parts are in close, in the closest, connection. You 
can not touch doctrines without the contact being felt by worship, 
both public and private; there is no jar given to liturgy or ritual 
the shock of which is not in some measure felt by the doctrine. 

There is a tendency to exclaim against ritual and against liturgy, 
against ceremony of all kind in religion. God is everywhere, we are 
told, and the forests are His temple, and His shrine the blue dome. 
Away, then, with cathedrals and churches ! God has made his own 
basilica — it is as vast as space, and it is in every spot under the 
sun or the moon or the stars. The people, some of them, may be 
fooled all the time, all of them may be fooled some of the time, but 
all the people can not be fooled all the time. The world in general 
has formed its judgment about these expansionists, and understand 
that where there are no temples, where there is no specified species 
of worship, there is no religion and their god is a very vague some- 
thing indeed. The intimate connection between the soul and the 
body is considered and remembered in religion. 

All knowledge comes from the senses. They influence thought, 
and they in their turn feel the effect of the workings of the mind. 
How many imposing conceptions about God and about man and 
about the universe can be awakened by what the eye sees and the 
ear hears are beyond enumeration. A lock of hair opens floods of 



204 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

recollections in a mother's memory, and a simple Cross may bring 
tears of gratitude or of repentance to many a human heart. Hence, 
the liturgy, hence the ritual, hence the ceremonies of the Church. 
The majesty of divine service impresses in a thousand stirring 
ways and forces the soul with sweet compulsion to adore and fear 
Him who alone is good, great, immense, almighty, and before whom 
the whole world is "as the least grain of the balance, and as a drop 
of the morning dew that falleth down upon the earth." 

Some comprehension of the liturgy of the Church should be part 
of every Catholic's equipment. The liturgy of the Church is the 
prayers to be used in the divine service by the priest, or the cere- 
monial to be followed in simple or solemn worship, or the different 
rites which, during the ages since her establishment, have been 
sanctioned by the Church. The unity of conception is the focal 
wonder of that liturgy. Multitudinous are its parts, but most com- 
pact is its wholeness. As a thought, as an inspiration, it is rhythmic. 
Every whisper becomes more and more loud, till there is one con- 
certed chorus, with strains from the living and the dead, strains 
from martyr and virgin, and levite and bishop and pontiff, singing 
Glory on the Highest, to the Highest; and odors in golden vials, 
which are the prayers of the faithful falling down before the Lamb. 
A perusal of any Mass, as it is in the Missal, is a doctrinal as well 
as a literary lesson — if the essential lesson in letters is the lesson 
of unity from which, as from a germ, buds and blossoms and 
flowers and fruits grow — a growth of harmonious thought and 
word. 

Scripture is pressed into the service, and the prophets and the 
law foretell, and the Gospels announce the coming of Him who re- 
deemed all flesh. The significance of all that the Church does is 
lost upon those who have not been taught the relation between 



LITURGY 205 

liturgy and dogma. This is sometimes, perhaps oftener than is 
known, a reason why many absent themselves from Mass, and why 
a great many stay from solemn Mass, and why a larger number 
yet never assist at Vespers or Benediction or other lesser, if the 
word may be tolerated, services. Mass to so many is such a hard- 
ship, no matter how rapid in the saying. Solemn Mass is insuf- 
ferable and unnecessary tedium, Vespers and Benediction a mean- 
ingless gathering of devotees and women and children. Why is 
this a fact? The answer is, because in the days when their minds 
were receptive, with a receptivity that never returns, the chil- 
dren were not made to see clearly all that these services were 
as means of grace and as wells of refreshment for their souls and 
the souls of all men, whatever their position, their condition or 
their age. For adults who have missed all this vital instruction 
there remains the remedy of preaching. Beyond a doubt, the 
preacher can prove himself a powerful agent in implanting that 
knowledge which brings so much benefit to those who have it. 
Perhaps, though, it is a question whether those who need him most 
will come to listen to his saving discourses. It can not certainly 
be a question, however, whether his utterances will affect the adults 
so nearly as these same men and women would have been in- 
fluenced in the days when their minds and their hearts were young 
and untainted. Really youth is the only seed time, every after 
growth is from belated tilling. It is hot-house development, and 
the plant is not so sturdy and the fruit has an artificial flavor. 
Liturgy must be given its place in the Sunday school. It must 
be made clear that Christ is the founder of the Church, that the 
Church would be a failure without Christ, that the office of the 
Church is to give Christ, the real Christ, the living Christ, to all 
her children. She does this through the Sacraments. 



206 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

Among the Sacraments there is one more excellent than all thei 
others, the Sacrament that keeps Christ with us every hour of the 
day and of the night. For that Sacrament altars and churches have 
been built and made splendid, and for that Sacrament is the Mass 
and all the prayers of the Mass and all the ceremonial of the Church. 



CHURCH HISTORY 



207 



XVI. CHURCH HISTORY 

The pedagogy which excludes history from its curriculum is in- 
competent and inexcusable. The same censure must be passed upon 
the Christian pedagogy which does not give it a fitting place in its 
course of studies. The value, nay, the necessity, of history in edu- 
cation is indispensable. What ecclesiastical history means for the 
Catholic is better understood than expressed. It is the story of the 
Church of God. What a large figure that institution has been and 
is and will be in world records is the marvel of the ages. "As Jesus 
Christ, the God incarnate, is the center of all history, so the divine 
institution of the Primacy of the Holy See and the independence of 
the Catholic Church, is the center of the history of the Christian 
era. Most of the great historical contests since the coming of 
Christ were waged around the Rock of Peter. It is impossible to 
understand and appreciate the course of human events in its proper 
meaning and character without giving full consideration and weight 
to these two central facts of history." If this be true, and the 
annals of twenty centuries are there to prove it, how logical the 
inference that the Catholic man or woman who is ignorant of the 
Church's history has a mind barren of much useful knowledge, and 
is deprived of an incentive to a justifiable pride in his or her spiritual 
ancestry, as well as a stimulus to the loftiest kind of moral excel- 
lence. The history of the Bible shows that we are the children of 
God, the history of the Church reveals that we are the brothers of 
Christ and the descendants of the saints. How bright every page of 
those annals are with examples of unwavering faith, of the largest 



208 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

charity, of a probity which startled the Gentiles, and of a courage 
unalterable and invincible, traits of character as much, perchance 
more, needed in these days in which we live. There are leaves and 
lines in those chronicles which prudence will screen from the gaze 
of the very young. When adult age has been reached it will do no 
harm to throw open every fact to prepared minds. No matter how 
read, unless misrepresented, there is no deed that does not redound 
to the glory of the Church. Students have to be apprised of many 
things. They must be taught to understand that the Church of 
God, though a divine institution, is made for men, human beings 
are its members, and, hence, a careful and clear distinction must be 
drawn between the divine and the merely human element. There 
have been scandals. They were foretold by Our Lord. They will 
occur again and again in the Church. It must be emphasized that 
churchmen are not the Church. The Church is divine, imperishable, 
inerrant. Churchmen are human, corruptible, and in every way 
fallible. The Supreme Pontiff can never make a mistake when exer- 
cising his function as universal teacher, can never teach an untruth 
or command what is against morality. Outside of this office he is 
a man, and, therefore, not impeccable. Ignorance produces lament- 
able results, and among them none is more deplorable than the 
facile quickness with which statements are admitted by children of 
the Church against their mother. This admission is so frequently 
a gross insult to history. It proceeds from many sources, the most 
common one being an absolute no-knowledge of the past or the 
present of the Church. It happens sometimes because Catechism 
has never been properly known or because it has been entirely for- 
gotten. It happens because non-Catholic influences are at work. 
It is made, this admission, because there has been an unchristian 
pedagogy injecting its poisonous fluids into mind and heart. Such 



CHURCH HISTORY 209 

a mind becomes blind. Such a heart becomes cold. It is made 
because so weakened has the religious instinct become that the 
yoke is too heavy to bear. 

To be a Christian means restraint, a restraint which human na- 
ture, unaided by religious principles and unsuccored by divine helps, 
sooner or later must fling off. Where the perfect Christian instinct 
is alive, the first impulse, when anything derogatory to the Church 
is spoken, is to brand it as a lie. It is not always a lie, perhaps. 
It is not sinning against the scientific principles of history to say 
that generally it is a lie. What has to be stigmatized is the ready 
acceptance it receives. One should be as sensitive about the reputa- 
tion of the Church as one is sensitive about the reputation of a 
mother. The becoming attitude when a vilifying statement has 
been made against religion is to refuse to admit without proof, to 
ask for proof ; in fact, to demand proof. When Church history has 
been presented in its true light, the student knows what stand to 
take, and, what is more, though he does not court attacks on his 
faith, he is not dismayed. The experience of the past has proven 
that for centuries history was a conspiracy against the Church. In 
the huge bulk of manuscripts there is a seething mass of calumny 
and slander. Scholars, not only those belonging to the Church, but 
many who have no love for it, have been indefatigable in their ef- 
forts to separate truth from falsehood and fiction. The truth is 
gradually emerging. The instructor in Church history will eluci- 
date all that is dark, and bring some kind of order out of chaos. 
His pupils will be educated to know that terrible frailty has now 
and then covered with foul blots ecclesiastical escutcheons. They 
will learn that this brings no contamination to the doctrine or the 
moral teachings of the Church. They will interpret things in the 
light of the broad distinction that exists between the Church and 



210 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOCY 

any member of it, be he highest or be he lowest. They will com- 
prehend that the study of the Church's career through the ages is 
not completed in the school room, that investigation, thorough and 
patient and long, is needed for the truthful presentation of the 
minutest points. They will be slow to admit what has been written 
in the past, and just as hesitating to accept what is printed in the 
present. 

The daily newspapers are the diaries of the race. They will be 
the material of the history of our own times. What a terrifying 
outlook for the reputation of the nineteenth and the twentieth cen- 
turies! In half a century from to-day we will be seen by others 
and as others see us. How many, if they saw their own composite 
picture as drawn from journalistic items, would accept the portrai- 
ture, and how many would fly in horror from the reproduction. 
Difficult as it has been to reconstruct the past of the Church, the 
difficulty is a small one compared with the perplexity which will 
obscure and daze the mind of the writer whose task it will be to 
peruse newspaper after newspaper in order to give to his readers the 
real story of that past of the Church of which we are contemporaries. 

Sad, indeed, would the mistake be to give no or little attention 
to Church history in any and especially in Christian pedagogy. 
The history of the Church is a strong demonstration of her divinity. 
She has survived the onslaught of the gates of hell. Her past is 
a guarantee of her future. As she has been, she is to be always. 
Christ made His promise so many centuries ago. He has kept that 
promise for twenty hundred years. What promise has ever been 
secured and endorsed by such a duration as that? It has seen 
dynasties and kingdoms rise, totter, disappear. She is as potent to-day 
as she ever was. The Pope speaks and the nations pause to listen, 
and more than two hundred and fifty million not only pause to 



CHURCH HISTORY 211 

listen, but to obey as well. What is a Christian if he knows not 
the historical splendors of his Church? Poor and weak indeed. 
But when he knows, who so justly proud and who so strongly de- 
termined to hold fast by her in calm and storm, in life and in 
death! 



212 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XVII. PUBLIC PRAYER AND CONGREGATIONAL SINGING 

Catechism teaches what is to be believed and what is to be done 
in order to be saved. In teaching this, much is learned, but when 
from theory a step is made in the direction of practise, then is 
teaching made perfect. In both Testaments the necessity of prayer 
is frequently and cogently urged. This necessity, which can not 
be sufficiently impressed upon all, receives an impulse that is 
salutary whenever the children are taught not only their prayers, 
but are taught as well by exercise what use is to be made of those 
prayers. Public prayer is prayer together, is the prayer which all 
say in unison at the beginning and at the end of class or during 
the services of the Church, at the daily or the Sunday Mass, or at 
any of the liturgical functions, said at Vespers, Benediction or the 
Stations of the Cross. The impressiveness of it is profound and 
lasting. The moral uplifting of it is an influence that goes far 
toward inculcating habits which later on will bear fruit in the indi- 
vidual and the family. Family prayers are not the common exer- 
cise they were or should be. A special blessing has been promised 
to such gatherings, "for where there are two gathered together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them." Undoubtedly, the 
larger the gathering the more efficacious will all petitioning be. 
The most perfect of all public prayers is the Mass. It is not only 
the most powerful of all intercessions, it is the epitome of all sup- 
plication. It is propitiation and pleading and expiation and praise. 
All public prayer should be conformed to it. The central influence 
is the victim Christ, and so all things must be asked for through 
Him. There is always a benediction attached to the mere presence 



PUBLIC PRAYER AND CONGREGATIONAL SINGING 213 

at Mass, but that benediction becomes richer in proportion to the 
intimacy of the union between the people and the priest. It is 
during this solemn function that public prayer has untold ad- 
vantages. It is a growing custom for the boys and the girls to 
unite in concerted prayer, with the celebrant, at certain parts of the 
Holy Sacrifice. These voices proclaim in appropriate language 
the meaning of this or that part of the great oblation. They 
humbly prepare themselves, as the priest prays at the foot of the 
altar; they raise their voices in exultant reverence at the Gloria in 
Excelsis, they make their act of faith at the Credo; after bowing 
down in worship at the Elevation, they join with him at the Pater 
Noster and smite their breasts in a pleading for mercy at the 
Agnus Dei, and after receiving Communion, spiritually or other- 
wise, their tones are those of praise and thanksgiving for the great 
privilege which has been theirs and the signal favor they have 
received. This sends home the lesson of prayer, a lesson so needed 
and so often forgotten. This is a lesson that is more eloquent than 
the Catechism itself, than any word of the teacher. It is a lesson 
which teaches not only what prayer is, but teaches how to pray, 
which is of greater moment yet. "I had rather feel compunction 
than know how to define it," said the author of the "Imitation of 
Christ." It is better to pray with fervor than to be acquainted with 
all the theology of prayer. Priests, while celebrating the holy Mass, 
have been moved by the sound of the young voices raised in prayer 
to the Lord. It has added to their own personal devotion. This 
public praying in earnest, modulated cadence is becoming more and 
more customary. The effect it has on adults who have been pres- 
ent and listened to these outpouring is beneficial in the extreme. 
The men and the women can not always attend the Mass of the 
children, and it is to be regretted. 



2i 4 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY. 

The query naturally suggests itself, Why can not the fathers 
and mothers, the brothers and sisters, and friends and acquaint- 
ances of these children, why can not the grown-up people be in- 
structed to assist in the same way, that is, with public prayer, at 
the Masses at which they are present, especially on Sundays and 
holy days of obligation? There is no need to discuss the innumer- 
able advantages which would be theirs if their attendance was made 
earnest and devout by the recital in unison of invocations suited 
to the various details of the Sacrifice. Such attendance would be 
for them a class in Christian doctrine and a renewal of faith and 
piety. Public prayer is, in a measure, an obligation. All intelligent 
beings owe worship to the Creator, and all organized bodies — socie- 
ties, towns, cities, governments, States, nations, families — because 
they have their entity from the maker and depend upon Him, are 
obligated, in some way or other, to acknowledge that dependence. 
Strictly speaking, there should be adoration of some kind from the 
whole nation and from each individual family. To-day the Church 
is the only institution that, as a complete society, including authority 
and all who live under that authority, offers public prayer to the 
Almighty and insists upon all her children joining in it with her. 

What has been expressed concerning public prayer might be said 
of congregational singing. The Lord is to be worshiped in every 
way, because in every way does He hold us in the hollow of His 
hand, and without His conserving energy at every breath we draw 
we would fall back into our original nothingness. He "made all 
things and without Him was made nothing that was made." Why, 
then, should not our souls lift themselves up in songs of prayer as 
well as in words of petition? The Church recognized the seemli- 
ness of this from the beginning, and while she hails in melody the 
Saviour who has come, the chosen people acclaimed the Messias 



PUBLIC PRAYER AND CONGREGATIONAL SINGING 215 

who was to be. Psalmody is as old as creation. The morning 
stars sang as they witnessed the wonders of the Almighty, and the 
angels raised their voices in hymns glorifying the wonders of the 
newer creation. "Praise the Lord, O my soul; in my life I will 
praise the Lord, I will sing to my God as long as I shall be." "My 
heart is ready, O my God, my heart is ready. I will sing and re- 
hearse a psalm. Arise, O my Glory, arise psaltery and harp. I 
will sing a song to thee among the nations." Emotion's highest 
expression is song. Song has been pressed into the service of the 
world, it is the language of rejoicing, of festivity. Why not press 
it into the service of God and of religion, for it is the language, 
too, of peace and spiritual joy and thanksgiving and praise? Con- 
gregational singing, in which all the attendants unite, is an elevat- 
ing form of devotion. It is cheering and inspiring. It goes far 
toward awakening instincts of religion, which have been dormant 
for years. It has a doctrinal function likewise. Into sounds of 
melody may be woven words of dogma, words which, while they 
instruct, leave some memory behind them and are not easily for- 
gotten. 

The voices of a congregation, be it large or be it small, are an 
agency full of potentialities. They leave no one unmoved. But 
it is as a form of public prayer chiefly that congregational singing 
is commendable. Prayer is the best moment of the man, and it is 
the best moment of men assembled together for worship. It is 
only while at prayer that men are at their best, for it is only then 
that the two highest faculties of man are engaged in the functions 
that are highest. In prayer man spurns the earth, walks with 
God, and his mind and his will are occupied with his highest, his 
only good. Anything, then, which leads man up to the mountain 
is to be approved and encouraged. When men forget to pray, 



216 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY, 

their condition is precarious. So, upon the child, must the neces- 
sity and the privilege of coming into such close communion with 
God, as is his privilege when he prays, be most deeply impressed. 
His Catechism will teach him the theory of prayer, his instructor 
will teach the practise, and among the helps at his disposal none 
will be found more powerful than public prayer and congregational 
singing. 



ATTENTION 



217 



XVIII. ATTENTION 

To win and to hold attention is the hallmark of the true teacher. 
It is difficult to compass. It is more a gift than an acquisition. It 
is rather inborn than attained, though it is not easy to fix limits to 
the effects of labor. It is not only a goal worth reaching; it is an 
absolute necessity. With it comes success; without it there is only 
failure in view. At no time is it easy of performance, and the 
younger the student the harder it is to accomplish. As the mind 
develops attention is more easily captured. In a class of adults 
who have a fixed object! in mind, in a class of men and women pre- 
paring for some calling, in a class where future interests are in- 
volved, the procuring of attention is not the task it is found to be 
among younger students and under other conditions. The will of 
the learner at a certain age can compel this concentration. Where 
minds are the minds of the young, minds volatile, minds distracted by 
every passing vision or fancy or notion, minds which are unable to 
give to things their proper value, this stretching out of the intelli- 
gence to grasp what is presented to it, is an effort that exceeds the 
potentiality of those who are being educated. In their case appeals 
to motives are almost in vain. Intimidation is often resorted to, but 
with very poor success. Probably the hope of reward is a more 
compelling force. In the case of the children in the lowest forms 
in Sunday school it is futile to rely much upon them. The work 
is solely in the hands of the teacher. What attracts in sensible 
objects may allow us to conjecture with what qualities, concepts and 
expressions are to be tricked out. Colors that are bright and sounds 



218 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

that are startling engage their eyes and their ears. If it were pos- 
sible to transfer these qualities to thought and speech, doubtless 
their minds would be attracted. How much preparation this sup- 
poses gives one an idea that the teacher, no matter what his subject, 
has a wearying and wearing road to travel. 

Teaching — that is, teaching worthy of the name — is not synony- 
mous with indolence. The teacher who boasts of his career as of one 
free from toil will not reap very rich harvests. It is a mind and a 
body and a heart-racking avocation. 

The kindergarten is an advance on all previous methods of educa- 
tion, for it has found and methodized many little ways and means to 
make the earliest days of training more pleasant and less laborious. 
Young minds and young bodies tire quickly, and so from the be- 
ginning the educators of all times have endeavored to discover a 
path full of pleasant surprises. Doubtless the success has been great, 
and doubtless the limits of that success have not yet been touched. 
There is very little, if any, progress possible without attention. It is 
the basis of all advance, and without it the boundaries of science 
would never have been pushed to their present lines. The startling 
inventions and the splendid discoveries of science and the immortal 
works of art are, in the main, the outcome of attention. Newton 
said that he had discovered the laws of universal attraction by 
always thinking on the subject. In fact, every success that has been 
won is an argument in favor of the importance of attention. 

Inattention, on the contrary, has been, and will still be, the parent 
of failure and disaster of every kind and in every order, individual, 
domestic, social, national. Inattention is the excuse given for all 
shortcomings, and there is no apology so frequent on the lips of 
offenders as the expression, "I was not thinking." Culture, there- 
fore, of attention is to be placed among the chief aims of pedagogy. 



ATTENTION 219 

That culture must' be begun, then, when there is the least expecta- 
tion of success, that is, in the minds of children, minds whose abid- 
ing characteristic is lack of attention. But that mind so barren, must 
not be allowed to remain so. It is here that the work begins — that 
work that makes such importunate and constant demands on skill 
and on patience. Skill, that is, a knowledge of the situation and its 
difficulties and a comprehension of plans to be devised and methods 
to be applied, that skill will perceive that the start must be slow, 
that all crowding of objects on the mind will repel and frustrate the 
best intention. 

The motto is : A little at a time and a tranquil repetition of that 
little. The experiment must not be tried until it nauseates. Over- 
loading stomachs brings on all the distress of indigestion, and over- 
loading minds brings on mental lassitude and agony. The skilful 
teacher is grateful for very small favors. He will sit, nurse-like, at 
the bedside of this sleeping intelligence and patience and address 
will be rewarded by a healthy awakening. 

Yes, he must be thankful for what he obtains. He must remember 
that the mental faculties are not in the start what they will be later. 
It is very hard to decide whether the attention gotten in the begin- 
ning is really attention. Some say that the attention of the child 
is but the shadow and the phantom of genuine attention. It is rather 
an involuntary or better, perhaps, if this be philosophically correct, 
a half voluntary effort. There is very little reflection connected with 
it, and so often it has the appearance of something impulsive, in- 
structive and compulsory. It is enough to daunt the most robust 
courage. But the fight is not a new one in the world. It is a fight, 
moreover, which has been won in the past, and so there is encourage- 
ment for the toilers in the field of education. It is a result worth 
striving for. It is not a mean achievement, this rousing an intelli- 



220 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

gence from its torpor. No mean achievement at all is it, when we 
reflect that so often an intelligence awakened has grown vigorous 
and gone on its way like a giant rejoicing in its strength and exult- 
ant in the conquests it has made in every province where it has the 
right to go in and win. This youthful mind is not' easily stirred into 
action. It is very exacting. It clamors for vivid and strong im- 
pressions. How persevering the professor must be when he is 
forced to give life and dominance to things that he has been familiar 
with since his own childhood, and which have lost all their freshness 
and with which he has been gorged unto satiety. His saving reliance 
is to look forward to the end. The end is so high, the end is so 
momentous. This is superlatively true in catechetics. These ob- 
stacles which have to be surmounted in all education must absolutely 
be overcome where there is question of religious instruction. Peda- 
gogical treatises have handled the present theme voluminously, and 
have furnished an abundance of valuable suggestions. These sug- 
gestions are, in most instances, a conscientious report of experience. 
They are not to be dismissed lightly. 

The genuine teacher will not trust to his own experience only, 
and he will prize the hints that are scattered multitudinously up and 
down in the vast variety of manuals to-day. The genuine teacher 
will consult and will not spurn advice. Aloofness is to be con- 
demned. Originality is not always safe. Yet individuality must 
respect itself, and out of his own environment one will project 
schemes that others might not profit by, but which, because they are 
in a large measure his own, may be abundantly fruitful. He will 
endeavor to have the character and the dispositions, the good and 
the bad qualities of his charges before him like an open book. A 
rich and inspiring volume they will prove for him. It will instruct 
him, as he is getting ready his explanatory lesson, what to retain, 



ATTENTION 221 

what to adopt, what comparisons to employ — comparisons taken, 
whenever possible, from the daily life of the children, their cares, 
their anxieties, their sports, their amusements, their toys — what 
language to use and what kind of questions to ask, and the sim- 
plicity and directness and honesty of speech, look and gesture. Little 
things seemingly all these, but seemingly only, for on them are 
reared the superstructure of Church and home and country. 



222 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XIX. THE PERFECT TEACHER 

The statement that the perfect teacher has never existed is true, 
absolutely speaking, because human nature has it's limitations, and 
where there are limitations there can be no perfection. There have 
been and there are professors who have proved and are proving 
themselves all that can be reasonably desired or expected. 

In an essay, entitled "Of Persons One Would Wish to Have 
Seen," William Hazlit't quotes a remark of Lamb, who suggested 
the subject, "There is only one other person I can think of after 
this," continued Lamb, but without mentioning a name, "that once 
put on a semblance of mortality. If Shakespeare was to come into 
the room, we should all rise up to meet him ; but if that person was 
to come into this room we should all fall down and try to kiss the 
hem of his garment." In this touching allusion the one to whom 
all would pay this reverence was the divine Teacher, who became 
man to teach men. It is to Him we must look for the ideal pre- 
ceptor. He was the perfect pedagogue. Those who approach Him 
approach perfection. "Learn of me," He has said. If we do not go 
to His school we will fall very short of the type which, though 
unreachable, is not inimitable. Not only has He said, "Learn of me," 
but He has also proclaimed, "Go and teach." If teaching is illumi- 
nation and stimulation, if its object is to point out trie good, to make 
known the good and to make ardent and unflinching followers of 
the good, then there has been no schoolmaster like Christ. 

In His school the good which men had lost was outlined more 
clearly and with greater simplicity than ever before. Its necessity 
was emphasized. The struggle that the pursuit of it implied was not 
painted in neutral tints, but in vivid colors. He minimized none of 



THE PERFECT TEACHER 223 

the consequences of following Him. He predicted all the persecu- 
tions which would overtake those who accepted his teaching. He 
taught that it was fitting to love what the world and the flesh hated, 
and to hate what the world and the flesh loved. His doctrine was a 
doctrine of poverty, of chastity, of obedience, of suffering, of leav- 
ing all things to believe on Him. He acknowledged Himself that 
it was a hard truth, the truth He came to impart. His unfolding 
of His tenets was lucid and plenary. We ask, was He a successful 
teacher? Was His school a failure? Ask of the centuries, ask of 
His disciples here, there, everywhere. In that shining example must 
be found a way to approximate to the perfection and success which 
were His. 

On inspection many traits will be made visible which, if repro- 
duced in others, may bring them nearer to Him. His character was 
an unblemished one. He had His calumniators, but they themselves 
knew, and the others knew, that they were traducers. His epitaph 
was that He went around doing good. He was the manliest of men. 
He was meek and humble, but He never sacrificed principle, never 
abandoned His mission. When indignation and unmasking and call- 
ing men by their proper names was called for, He never hesitated. 
How thoroughly He possessed the courage of His convictions. How 
carefully and triumphantly He defended His own reputation when 
He thought vindication was worth while or the dignity of the situation 
demanded it ! What was there admirable in man that was not more 
admirable in Him ? Emphatically, if character goes to the making of 
the perfect teacher, it worked energetically and faultlessly in Him. 
Personality has not a little to do with success in the master. What 
about His personality ? What was His personality but' the fragrance 
of His character. He won all who came to Him. He drew unto 
Himself those who had only heard of Him. Character was the 



224 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

potent agency. Character is compacted of will and heart and mind. 
The will of Christ, how unerring and how strong it was ! Hearts 
to be what they should be must beat high and strong. How throb- 
bing with fortitude His was ! How vigorous its pulsations ! There 
was only one sentiment awake in it, the sentiment of love. It hated, 
too, but love was the all-absorbing feeling. He hated not men, but 
what men did, hated it because it hurt men themselves and hurt His 
love for men and hurt the interests of the Father about whose busi- 
ness He had always to be. His own business was teaching the 
Father to men. 

The whole world has granted that Christ is as a human being 
solitary, on a peak, in the heights of the world. Why do they not 
make the little stride of will that would bring them on their knees 
at His feet in worship of His divinity. Genius, not the pseudo- 
genius that poses and repels, but genius, the full flower of intel- 
lectuality, diffused its fragrance as He taught. He taught well, 
because He knew well. He taught well because He spent so many 
nights on the mountain in prayer. His character made His life 
beautiful, made His death a triumph. From Him has come the 
mandate to all those whom He gave gifts for that purpose to go and 
teach. 

"Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name 
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." All teachers 
are not priests, are not ecclesiastics. Many lay men and lay women 
have been very helpful and very efficient catechists and have ranked 
high in their work. All, however, will admit, the priests and the 
laity, that in no one are more deeply marked the characteristics of 
the perfect teacher. This does not mean that He is the only teacher, 
for He has given others the command to teach, but it does mean 
that He is the model to whom all teachers should conform. He 



THE PERFECT TEACHER 225 

succeeded because He knew, He succeeded because He prayed, He 
succeeded because He knew not only what He taught, but knew how 
to communicate it to others. He knew Himself and He knew His 
disciples. He succeeded because He loved His work and His 
Father and those among whom He was. sent to work. He who com- 
bines these features in himself resembles very closely the Preceptor 
of all. It is not enough to have this or that feature, it is necessary 
to have all. 

Prayer is much, but prayer alone is not everything. Prayer and 
work, when they travel hand in hand, effect not a little, but prayer 
and work and knowledge are the materials which experience will 
manufacture into the perfect teacher. In catechetics this advantage 
avails. It is that only the truth is presented and theories count 
for nothing. There is no theorizing, no discussion. In other mat- 
ters it is otherwise. In philosophy, in theology and even in science 
there is room for much diversity of opinion, and, hence, for cavil 
and heated opposition. 

To be a perfect teacher is to wear a crown. The perfect teacher 
molds minds and tutors hearts while he wins them. He fashions 
character. He survives in the gracious and splendid memories he 
leaves behind ; he survives in the men and women he has helped 
educate. Nor must it be forgotten that the smile of heaven is 
always shining down upon him. His is a life which it is good to 
have lived. It is the highest life because it deals with the highest 
interests of every life. It is a career which ought to fire those who 
walk in it with an unquenchable ambition to be best therein. The 
temptation to be guarded against is discouragement. Let him fight 
that down and depression will be swallowed up in love for his work. 
This love is victorious. Where we love we do not labor, or if we do 
labor the labor is loved. 



226 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 



XX. THE PERFECT SCHOOL 

The "little red schoolhouse" has played a conspicuous role in the 
history of the United States. It has pointed a moral and adorned 
many a tale. It has furnished many a "purple patch" to oratorical 
efforts otherwise tame and bald. Its memory will live in the annals 
of the country, and many a village haranguer will wax eloquent as 
the vision of it floats before his excited imagination. Its survival, 
in this fashion, is not an unmixed evil. It will fasten inextricably 
upon the national chronicles the recollection of an injustice as 
colossal as it was and still is criminal. The injustice is one that 
drove the religionists against whom it was plotted into an attitude 
of fidelity, courage and generous self-sacrifice, which will be re- 
membered with wondering admiration when the schoolhouse of the 
past will be only a memory, and for so many a searing memory. 

The archdiocesan centenary in New York, which was such a splen- 
did act of faith and such a magnificent tribute to a maligned and 
persecuted religion, even from the descendants of those who perse- 
cuted it, had no greater subject upon which to pour out floods of 
enthusiastic praise than the parochial school in its rise and struggles, 
its progress and victories, all making for a consummation which 
challenges the admiration of this and all other countries, a consumma- 
tion which as much as any other and more than many others con- 
tributed to the splendor of that mammoth, stupendous, epochal, his- 
torical commemoration of which the glories, no matter how far into 
the future they may trail, will still be alight. The parochial school 
stands as the champion of faith and justice, stands monumentally as 



THE PERFECT SCHOOL 227 

an undying witness to the love of Mother Church for the souls of her 
children, to her determination that there will be no education ap- 
proved by her, save that which is directed and imparted under the 
influences of a Christian pedagogy. All this does the parochial 
school fight for, though twice has she to provide the sinews of that 
warfare, for herself and for the very enemy against whom she 
has been forced to enter the lists. 

The little red schoolhouse, the forerunner of the public school of 
to-day, has done its work just as its offspring has done and is doing 
its work. The work it projected it has not done. It boasts that it 
is the cradle in which all the progress of this country has been 
rocked, that it has nursed all the civilization which has placed her 
in the front rank of the peoples of the earth. 

It has done all the good that teaching without religion can do. It 
has not prevented all, if any, of the evil of which irreligious educa- 
tion is inevitably the source. 

The history of the United States has yet to be written, and only 
when the last page is finished can an impartial verdict be given. 
Two disciplines will be brought before the bar of posterity, the 
discipline that inculcates religion, the discipline that discards re- 
ligion. It is not hard to predict what the decision of the jury will be. 

The perfect school is rarer, much rarer, than it's description. In 
perfection there are many elements of which the Christian school 
possesses one which is chief because it is essential. The word of 
Christ said, "Go and teach, baptizing all nations in the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." Teaching is much, 
but there is more, there is the baptizing those to whom the teaching 
is brought. Teaching itself must descend into the vivifying waters, 
teaching itself must be baptized. The school that does not teach in 
the name of the Three Persons of the blessed Trinity is not faithful 



228 CHRISTIAN PEDAGOGY 

to the mandate, is doomed to failure, to moral failure first, to intel- 
lectual failure finally. Material progress is only the body of progress. 
Without the soul it is speeding rapidly toward death and corrup- 
tion. The parochial school has one constituent of perfection, be- 
cause the parochial school is built for the purpose of keeping alive 
that soul without which there looms up in sight nothing but the 
grim specter of dissolution. If religious training is primarily to be 
effected, it does not stand in the way of intellectual instruction. 
Remissness regarding mental advancement would be neglect of a 
very momentous duty. This duty is imperious in its claim to high- 
est mentality, that is, to the mentality which is according to the grade 
its standard imposes upon it. As it was intended in the second part 
of these writings to apply the well-known principles of Christian 
pedagogy to catechetics, and because Catechism is the central func- 
tion of the parochial school, these concluding remarks are addressed 
to that particular school. Christian doctrine does not end with the 
days spent' in parish schools. Christian doctrine receives all the 
development of which it is susceptible in the houses of collegiate and 
university education. In Catholic colleges there are classes of ad- 
vanced Catechism and of evidences of religion. In these superior 
establishments the crowning touch is the course of metaphysics and 
ethics without which all higher training is truncated and rendered 
lamentably inefficient. What is to be thought of the philosophy 
discussed in colleges and universities which are not guided by the 
pedagogical maxims put forward in these pages, can not be put in 
any other form of expression unless that of pity and execration. 
The parochial school, then, is fast verging toward that perfection 
which is within the reach of human effort, when religious training 
and secular knowledge march hand in hand and straightwise and 
upward. The school is made up in its totality of the kind and degree 



THE PERFECT SCHOOL 22 g 

of education, of the skill of the teacher and of the docility of the 
children. Where these three are in perfect action and harmonized 
combination, there is the perfect school. 

Is it necessary to speak of the material school itself? of the 
building in which are the rooms wherein teacher and pupils 
meet, the one to give, the others to receive? Externals may be 
secondary, but in their secondariness they contribute much to 
efficiency and so to perfection. "Perfection," said an eminent 
actor, "is made of trifles, but perfection is no trifle." The teacher 
who is heedless of little things in so far recedes from the 
standard, and because this is so, there is nothing little, nothing 
trifling in education. It is this that renders it a labor so arduous. 
It would seem, then, that the entire edifice could be an imposing 
structure, with an interior providing light and cheerfulness and 
comfort and safety, and thereby help toward the idealization of the 
teacher and the taught, and so would spring up the perfect school. 
It were to be wished that the Christian school could capture the 
clinging affection which is so obvious where other schools are con- 
cerned. The perfection of the school, of the formal school, is the 
advance and the elevation of catechetics, and catechetics is the 
purveyor of all those truths which are the saving salt of intellectu- 
ality, of all those doctrines which purify and strengthen a people. 

Give a free rein, in firm, sure hands, to catechetics and it will be 
well with the world. The future that Macaulay predicted for Lon- 
don will never come for our metropolis. Emphatically no. The day 
will never come when a Moro from the Philippines will sit on a 
broken arch of Brooklyn Bridge and sketch the ruins of Trinity 
Church. 



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^|f HE physician of souls may perform his whole duty better, 
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fire** Comments 

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It touches on so many topics of great interest to the clergy that it 
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PUBLISHED BY JOSEPH F. WAGNER 

9 BARCLAY STREET, NEW YORK. 



The only up-to-date work on the Roman Court. Revised 
according to the changes made by recent Papal decrees. 



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By the VERY REV. NICHOLAS HILLING, D.D. 

Professor at the University of Bonn. 

New and Revised Edition 

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WHAT THIS BOOK CONTAINS: 



History and Development of the 
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Present Constitution of the Papal 
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Enumeration of Papal Officials 
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Consistory, Congregations, Com- 
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The Competency of Each of these 
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The Penal Procedure at the Curia. 
Appeals to the Curia. 
Summary Procedure at Episcopal 

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"A clear account of all the Officials at the Papal Court in Rome. The 
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PUBLISHER, 



JOSeph F. Wagner, 9 Barclay St., New York 






r . nr . v „*, rn CAT 0»V. 

)V 18 1909 



